


The Many Spectacles of Michael Mell

by Snailicorn



Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: Angst, Asthma, Attempt at Humor, Fluff, Friendship, Gay, Gay Michael Mell, Jeremy has anxiety, M/M, Michael Mell Has Two Moms, Pining Michael, Recreational Drug Use, also michael has a cat, boyf riends - Freeform, but not too much, i mean its just weed which is a canon thing for michael soooo, implied onesided rich/michael, lots of swearing because teenagers, michael is accident prone, people are weird and feelings are complicated, protect our precious gay son, sensory issues, teenage boys make questionable decisions, wanton destruction of glasses, who knows if its onesided or not
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-24
Updated: 2018-08-03
Packaged: 2019-04-27 03:01:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14416248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snailicorn/pseuds/Snailicorn
Summary: “No, I mean, you neverjustlose your glasses orjustbreak them, though. Someone dares you to do something stupid or something insane happens; it’s like the universe is trying to mug you and steal your glasses. I don’t give a shit about your specs, dude, it’s thewaysthey get demolished that worry me.”Michael takes off his glasses and looks at them. They’re his fifth pair this year. “I still don’t follow,” he says self-consciously. “Nameonetime I broke myspectaclesin aspectacularway.”-------------------------------------------------Alternatively titled "Michael Mell: Just Fuck Me Up"A bunch of times Michael breaks/loses his glasses in a weird way, usually getting messed up in the process. It's stressful to be Michael Mell. It is way more stressful to be one of the people who care about him. Maybe someday he'll realize that.





	1. INTRO

**Author's Note:**

> This is just the intro. Each chapter can be read as a standalone, and they're all p much going to be after the events of the musical. Thanks in advance for reading! <3

“So, like, what’s the worst thing about me?” Michael asks out of the blue one day, when they’ve gotten a GAME OVER for the tenth time.

“Dude, what?” Jeremy asks. “You’re my best friend.”

“I _knooow,”_ Michael sighs, rolling over on his beanbag. He spots a piece of popcorn and flicks it with his fingers, sending it straight into Jeremy’s shirt. “But, like, seriously. I know I’m your _favowite,_ but there has to be something.”

“You’re never gonna let me forget I said that, are you?” the taller boy responds dryly. He stands and shakes his shirt, but the popcorn just falls into his pants instead. He kicks his leg a few times, and it falls out onto the floor. “Why are you even asking? Are you gonna take off on a self-help mission or something?”

Michael laughs, but there’s something nervous behind it. “Just, y’know, _reasons.”_

Jeremy looks down at him strangely. “Seriously, Michael. You and I should know better than anyone that you shouldn’t change yourself just to make someone else happy.” Michael stares at the screen, refusing to make eye contact with Jeremy. They stay like that, silent, for a while. “Did something happen?”

“No,” Michael says unconvincingly, even though it’s the truth. Nothing happened, nothing’s going to happen. Jeremy plops back down next to him. “I’ve just been thinking about… stuff.”

_You,_ Michael’s heart says.

“What kind of stuff?” Jeremy’s staring at him, now, and it makes Michael uncomfortable for a lot of reasons. 

“Just, like...” he trails off, choosing his words, “...like, where this is all going.”

Jeremy raises an eyebrow, confusion and worry evident in the eyes his friend won’t meet. “Where _what_ is going?”

_God, he’s dense,_ Michael’s brain says. _This is hopeless. Maybe there isn’t anything I can work on to make him feel about me the way I feel about him. Maybe he just never will._

His heart speaks up: _I’m too dependent on him. Is that it? That’s what mom always says._

“Michael?” Jeremy asks, tentative. 

“Nevermind,” Michael mumbles. He pushes start. The round picks up again, but Jeremy dies immediately. He’s too busy watching the TV reflected in Michael’s glasses.

“I mean, I guess--” the taller boy starts, stopping Michael’s heart and brain at the same time. “I guess if I had to pick something, you’re kind of… stressful.”

“What?” Michael exclaims, bewildered. “Why?”

“I- I don’t mean it like that! Or, well, I guess I kinda do,” Jeremy runs a hand through his hair. “I just mean, I… worry about you, a lot?”

Michael sits up and looks at him, letting his character get overrun by zombies. This is not what he was expecting. “Why?” he asks again, more curious than woe-is-me now.

“You just-- uh, you do dumb stuff, or weird shit happens to you, and I’m afraid you’ll get hurt,” Jeremy explains. “I used to always worry that people would be mean to you because you didn’t care what they thought, even though I did everything I could to fit in and still got bullied. I guess eventually, after… everything, I figured that wasn’t the problem.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Michael replies honestly. 

_I got nothing,_ his heart adds.

_Yeah, what the fuck?_ Michael’s brain agrees.

Jeremy sighs in frustration, “I mean-- I don’t know, like...” He trails off, trying to come up with an example so he can explain what he means. He watches the timer of the GAME OVER screen tick down in Michael’s glasses. At ONE, he comes up with something.

“Okay, like your glasses. You lose them or break them all the time.”

“Yeah? Why would that worry you, it’s not like you have to pay for them.”

“No, I mean, you never _just_ lose them or _just_ break them, though. Someone dares you to do something stupid or something insane happens; it’s like the universe is trying to mug you and steal your glasses. I don’t give a shit about your specs, dude, it’s the _ways_ they get demolished that worry me.”

Michael takes off his glasses and looks at them. They’re his fifth pair this year. “I still don’t follow,” he says self-consciously. “Name _one_ time I broke my _spectacles_ in a _spectacular_ way.”

Jeremy kicks him halfheartedly, smirking at his friend’s dumb pun. “I can name _several,_ actually. Like the time--”


	2. Hangin' With Rich

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one has more swearing and also copious amounts of "dude" and "bro" because Rich.

No matter what season it is, the temperature in the school sucks. The outer rooms and hallways get blasted with icy air conditioning. The inner rooms, the ones that have no windows because they don’t share a wall with the outside, are always stiflingly muggy. Every year, the principal and all the maintenance workers _claim_ that “they” are “working on it.” Michael thinks the school should be sued for not saying “allegedly” before that. Whoever “they” are supposed to be, they’ve been “working on it” since the school was built, probably. 

He’s not sure why he expected it to suck less in the after hours, but if anything, it’s worse. Strictly speaking, Michael’s not _technically_ allowed to still be here, but Jeremy is, and he’s Jeremy’s ride. Michael’s “hidden” himself in the stairwell closest to the parking lot exit, where he’s freezing his ass off. The only people left in the building by now are Jeremy’s theater club, a handful of teachers still grading, a group of seniors executing their senior prank, and the extremely pissed off custodial staff. The janitors are on a mission to search and destroy (search and scrub?) every dick that’s been painted on the various internal and external smooth surfaces around the school. And there are a _ton._ Michael’s not sure how many, um, “artists” there are sneaking around, but from the bits of shouting he’s heard, it sounds like a losing battle for the custodians. Either way, he doesn’t want to be mistaken as part of it, because tomorrow there’s gonna be hell to pay.

And so, he sits-- hunkered down with his hoodie covering as much of his body as possible so that, hopefully, Jeremy will have a ride home and not a Michael-shaped icicle waiting for him. The meeting’s going extra late tonight, something about a vote on what play to put on next semester, in the fall.

Jeremy texts an update when he can sneak a glance at his phone. From the picture he’s painted, it sounds like Christine and some other girl have sunken to throwing Shakespearean insults at each other. Michael can’t imagine Christine fighting with anyone, but then again, she _does_ get emotional when it comes to theater. It sounds fun, which only serves to irritate Michael more because he’s _so bored._

No one’s been around since he took up residence in the stairwell, so Michael lowers his guard and pops in his headphones. He’s using his shitty backup earbuds this time, because he’s been caught a few too many times with his usual ones, and they’re too expensive to let them get confiscated by a teacher. The earbuds are easier to hide, but right now he’s wishing he had the other set, if only because he’d like to use them as earmuffs. He starts his most recently-added jam: an 8bit tune from a game he’s actually never played, remixed by some guy on YouTube.

He’s never been one for holding still (especially when music is involved), and his parents always tell him to get moving if he complains that the house is cold, so he does just that. On the landing between staircases, surrounded by outdated school events posters, he starts to spin. He doesn’t dance or anything, he just twirls, eyes closed and arms out as far as he can reach. He just feels the music.

The stairwell, the lights, the freezing artificial air-- they all melt away. He’s spinning dizzily in the blackness behind his eyelids like he’s in outer space. It’s hard to tell what’s up or down, but in a good way. He’s lost, but willingly so. The song fades out and another fades in (he edits the audio himself when he downloads a song because the fading is so important to him. He can’t stand it when the transition is jarring). He just keeps spinning, counterclockwise, imagining he’s a planet orbiting in the void of space and then--

_“FUCK!”_

There are hands on his shoulders and a face to close to his. He’s back in the stairwell and his heart stutters. He falls backwards onto his ass, startled out of his skin. He clutches one hand to his pounding chest while the other yanks out his earbuds. 

Rich is laughing so hard he’s crying. “S-sorry,” he gasps between sobs of laughter.

“Jesus fuck, Rich!” Michael exclaims, at a loss for anything better to say. His parents would _not_ be pleased.

Rich taps at his ear and says, “Sorry man, I couldn’t resist when I realized you couldn’t hear me! You did it to yourself.” Wiping a tear from his eye he adds, “Holy shit, you should’ve seen your face, bro.”

He steps forward and offers Michael a hand, which he accepts. Mostly recovered, Michael looks at the time on his phone. “What are you even doing here, anyway?”

“I had tutoring. Now I’m thinking about how to get in on this dick-drawing thing.”

Michael frowns. He knows Rich, of all the people who were squipped, was out of school the longest. First he had to recover from his burns, then he had to miss a lot for physical therapy. Even Jeremy only got caught up a couple weeks ago, and he was out of the hospital well before Rich was. Still, it’s almost 7pm. He definitely should have been done by now.

Apparently sensing Michael’s confusion, Rich continues. “My, uh, my old man was supposed to pick me up a couple hours ago since I’m still not allowed to drive. Guess he forgot… again.” His knuckles are white in his clenched fist.

“I can give you a ride,” Michael offers immediately, eager to defuse the situation. “As long as you’re willing to wait for Jeremy, that is.”

Rich grins at him, showing too many teeth. It used to freak Michael out, but now his smile just seems awkward and goofy. “Thanks, man. Thought I was gonna be sitting here until I died of old age.”

Michael shoots off a text to Jeremy telling him that he’s giving Rich a ride, too. There’s not really any reason Jeremy needs to know ahead of time, but Michael’s hoping that _two_ people waiting for him might persuade Jeremy to get his ass out of there already.

Michael sits on the top step of the lower staircase, and Rich plops down next to him. _Right_ next to him. Their arms touch and Michael shivers involuntarily. Michael doesn’t mind touching people himself, but unsolicited physical contact from someone else sort of freaks him out. He likes Rich but, unfortunately, Rich is a really touchy-feely person. He’s always hugging someone or throwing an arm around their shoulders or playfully punching people.

Michael hasn’t found a polite way to ask Rich not to touch him yet, so he bites the inside of his cheek and deals with it.

Maybe Rich is just cold, too? He basically never has sleeves, even when all of his classes are in the freezing parts of the school, though. Michael considers asking, but he figures Rich will just say something ridiculous about being hot-blooded or something, so he doesn’t bother. 

When Michael has endured all the contact he can take, he gets up to move again. Rich glances up briefly from where he’s carving his name into the steps with a pocket knife, but lets him go. Michael starts pacing around the small landing, then wanders up the steps to see if any dick-artists are nearby. He sighs and is surprised he can’t see his breath. He pulls his arms inside his hoodie and lets the sleeves hang limp, trying to make the most of his body heat.

He’s reading a bulletin board post about preventing teenage pregnancy for the third time when he feels the jolt of his sleeves being tugged. He whips around to see Rich waving his hands apologetically. “I didn’t mean to sneak up on you that time,” he says earnestly, “You really _are_ going deaf, dude!”

Michael pouts and opens his mouth to dispense some well-deserved sass, but Rich cuts him off. “Y’know, me and my brother used to, like, tie each other up like we were in straitjackets and hop around the house.” He shakes his head with a wistful smile Michael’s never seen before. “Things were so easy back then...” Rich catches himself and blushes in embarrassment, “I- I mean, being a kid and all. Now it’s like, responsibility, whoa!”

He laughs awkwardly, clearly looking for a place to backpedal to. Michael understands, so he tries to give his friend an out. “I didn’t know you had siblings.”

“Oh, uh, yeah!” Rich answers gratefully. “Yeah, just the one. He’s older than me though, so he moved out and has kids and stuff. Now it’s just, uh, me and dad.”

Rich’s tone shifts at the mention of his father again, so Michael gives a change of subject another shot. “So, like, how do you do it? The straitjacket thing.”

“Oh! Let me show you.”

And just like that, Michael is being spun around, his loose sleeves pulled tightly behind him, arms bound closely to his chest. There’s a spark of anxiety as Michael’s brain fights to separate the bully from the real, reformed Rich. Once he gets past that (with the help of his friend’s beaming grin as he steps back to admire his work), it’s actually… kind of nice. The pressure of a hug, but with the added bonus of not having a person touch him.

“Well? Try to get out!”

“I kinda don’t want to? This isn’t bad,” Michael muses.

Rich laughs at him, an eyebrow raised incredulously. “You’re so weird, dude. The whole point is to escape!”

“Would _you_ escape from a super cozy prison?” 

Rich shakes his head, but can’t keep the smile off his face. “A cozy prison is still a prison, bro. Seriously, it doesn’t freak you out, not being able to move?”

Michael suddenly feels self-conscious for some reason. Even stranger, he gets the feeling Rich does, too. “I mean, I guess I should be, but like--” He looks up at the ceiling as if it can find the words he can’t. “I guess… I don’t know, I trust you.”

He feels his face flush and Rich’s stare burning a hole into the side of his head. He refuses to make eye contact. Neither of them are any good at properly expressing themselves, and now Michael’s gone and made it weird.

It’s an unwanted reminder of how little experience either of them has with friendship.

Rich clears his throat and Michael stutters out, “A-anyway--.” He starts trying to wriggle out of the homemade (well, “Rich-made”) straitjacket. He tries to get his arms free, but they barely move. “How are you--” he grunts in frustration “--supposed to start?”

“Uh-uh, no hints,” Rich responds with a smirk. “Let me know when you give up!” The shorter boy leans against the wall, arms crossed. 

Michael’s never been able to resist a direct challenge. He walks over to the metal waist-high guard lining the upper landing. He briefly tries to stretch part of his hoodie over one of the few vertical bars welded to the horizontal ones as structural support. He thinks maybe if he can get the small portion that rises above the topmost horizontal bar hooked under his hoodie, he can pull against it the other way and stretch the material enough for some room to work with. He’s a little worried he might rip his hoodie, but Rich’s smug face lights a fire inside that distracts him. It’s not like he’s never torn it before-- a tear is just another excuse to get his mom to sew more sick-ass patches on.

It doesn’t work-- the fabric just slides off the cold metal because the raised part of the vertical bar is only an inch or two above the horizontal bar. Rich laughs again, so Michael sticks his tongue out at him (his middle fingers are, unfortunately, otherwise occupied). In his struggling, he spots a low-dangling earbud. With his hoodie tied so tautly, the pocket has been pulled flat against him, and the contents are about to fall out. He’s a little concerned about the earbuds, sure, but his main priority is his phone. If he steps on the cord, his phone might get yanked out of his pocket, and he’s as good as dead if he cracks another phone screen.

He steps awkwardly to avoid the cord, but his foot finds a discarded piece of paper instead of just the floor. His weight is off center and his shoe slips. 

Judging by the shock in Rich’s eyes, his brain figures out what’s happening before Michael’s does. Michael feels his lower back crash into the metal bar and he’s _falling--_

For a second, anyway. 

His body jerks to a stop against gravity. Hands claw at his pant legs and then grip his ankle and he swings back against the cement wall behind him. His glasses spring off his face, but he has no idea where they go; he can’t tell which way is up and which is down. This time, the feeling is far from pleasant. When he tunes back into reality he hears two sets of ragged panting. He hesitantly opens one eye-- he’s not even sure when he closed them, but he wishes he had stayed that way.

The world has turned on its head. He looks “up” (actually down) and sees the first floor far below him. Looking straight out, he sees the intermediate landing that connects the upper and lower staircases across the way, the papers on the bulletin board looking like a foreign language, upside down and blurry.

When he was little, Michael liked to “walk” on his hands and feet around the house and look behind, through his legs, at the upside down world. He always thought it would be incredible to walk on the ceiling and step over doorways. Now, he’s not such a fan.

“Shit, shit, shit!” Rich gasps, and Michael agrees. Michael tries to curl himself and look up at him, but he’s never once passed the physical fitness text in gym, like, _at all._ He’s a lanky, awkward nerd who barely has the abdominal strength for a normal sit-up. There’s no way in Hell he can do one hanging upside down with his arms bound to his chest. Instead, Michael only manages a small, scared noise. His blood is rushing in his ears.

“-Shit, oh shit, dude--” Rich is still panicking, “I just-- uh-- what do I do?!”

“Idon’tknowpleasedon’tdropmeholyshit,” Michael squeaks. He’s looking at the blurry floor like it can give him the answers and it feels like every drop of his blood is in his head, weighing him down towards it.

“Can you-- can you grab something?!” The other boy’s lisp is back in full force, but for once he doesn’t seem to notice. The panic in his voice triggers a frightening realization in Michael. Rich has always tried to make up for his height with muscle and pretty much always seems to be lifting weights with Jake, but Rich has also been in the hospital for a long time. How much muscle might have atrophied? And the burns, they were _everywhere._ He has nerve damage, too.

“Please don’t drop me,” Michael repeats in a small voice.

“Okay, okay, just-- uh, hang on!” The ankle Rich is clutching is tingling like his leg’s asleep. Michael feels compelled to move it, but resists-- Rich is having a hard enough time keeping hold of him already, moving would definitely end with Michael on the floor below. It’s not an especially far drop; if you jumped, you might not even break anything. 

Falling headfirst, though… That could be bad.

“Michael!” Rich shouts desperately. Has he been talking for a while? Michael’s brain is foggy, and the blood rushing in his ears is deafening.

“Y-yeah?”

“Do you still have your phone?! Can you call someone?!”

Michael has no idea if his phone is in his pocket. His vision is too blurry to see it without his glasses, if it’s on the floor (the darkness edging into his vision doesn’t exactly help), and how would he get to it, anyway? His arms are stuck. Also, why does he have to do all the work? He’s the one dangling like a really lame version of Spider-man! “No… Um, do you have… have yours?”

“I can’t call anyone without letting you go, dude! Just-- ah! You think someone’s nearby?!” The grip shifts again, but Michael is preoccupied with blinking the stars out of his eyes. It’s kind of like being in space after all. “UH, HELLO?! ANYONE?!” Rich’s voice echoes around the empty stairwell. “SOMEBODY?! JANITOR-DUDES?! EVEN MUSTACHE-GUY?!”

“Think his name’s… Phil.”

“BILL?!”

“No… Ph-Phil,” Michael tries, unaware that the position he’s in makes him sound like he’s got one hell of a stuffy nose.

“BILL! That’s what I _said,_ dude!”

Michael’s vision is almost totally gone and his head feels like it’s going to explode. He can’t even feel the rest of his body outside of the tingling. He makes a decision, and struggles through the haze to speak again. “Dude, you… you gotta drop me.”

“What?!”

“S-seriously, Rich...” 

Rich tightens his grip on Michael’s ankle, but Michael can’t feel it. “Dude, you’ll crack your head open! I can’t!”

The pressure in Michael’s head is un-fucking-real. It’s a dull, constant, impossible to ignore ache. And it just keeps _building._ He almost wants to explode at this point, just so he’d be dead and it wouldn’t hurt so much. He doesn’t care about falling, he just wants this to stop. “Rich… d-drop me… dude,” he breathes heavily, but it does nothing to help. “I can’t...”

“You could _die,_ dude! You’ll break your neck or--” Rich squeezes Michael’s cold ankle again, but he gets no response. “H-hey! Don’t black out, dude! Michael!”

As Michael’s hearing fades out all the way, he can make out Rich’s voice trailing off: “Somebody! _Jeremy!”_  
\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

Michael’s in space again, cold and alone. He can’t see or hear; he can only… drift. And breathe. Which is something he wouldn’t have expected to do in space but, okay, sure. Why not?

There is some other celestial body-- he can sense it there, in a vague, hazy way. He wants to tell it to get out. This is _his_ galaxy, thank you very much.

All of a sudden, its atmosphere takes hold of him. He is trapped by its gravity and he falls, fast. His ears decide to work long enough to hear a distant cry and a whooshing sound, and there’s just enough feeling in his body that he knows when the freezing surface connects with his back and head.

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

Another noise pierces the soundlessness, and Michael expects something profound-- maybe the meaning of life or something, that would be cool. Instead, there’s a cacophony of echoing slaps; the rubber soles of ill-fitting sneakers rapidly hitting tile. And an increasingly loud repetition of _“shit shIT SHIT--”_

As the tingling comes back to his numb body, it brings with it the aching of his… well, everything. He feels hands clutching at his face and then his shoulders, surprisingly solid. The hands snake under his arms and pull him towards warmth. 

It doesn’t exactly help to ease the pain in his back and head, but… it’s nice.

The frantic expletive-chanting devolves into a blubbering mess of “oh, fuck, dude, oh my god.” A sob startles him back to his senses more quickly than he was meandering, but he doesn’t open his eyes until a wetness on his face stings him. He blinks the black away, sparks flickering around in his field of view, and then he’s making eye contact (a rare feat, for him) with Rich. The other boy stares at him, shocked, tears streaming from his eyes. 

Tears look so _wrong_ on Rich’s face.

Michael’s brain fumbles for something to say. All he succeeds in doing is closing his eyes tightly and muttering a weak, “Ow...”

Rich hurriedly wipes at his tears with one arm, though his breathing still suggests panic. He pulls Michael up to rest against his own chest and starts rapidly untying his hoodie sleeves for some reason. It’s like he thinks he’s resetting Michael to his default mode, or maybe finishing a puzzle and putting him back together again. Michael’s confused-- his arms aren’t even _in_ the sleeves. His body’s still too uncooperative to move, so he just stays awkwardly lying against Rich, feeling more than hearing as Rich’s breathing calms.

“Holy shit,” Rich exhales finally.

“Ugh,” Michael agrees.

“I thought--” Michael hears Rich swallow nervously. “I thought I fuckin’ killed you, man.”

It’s the quietest Michael’s ever heard Rich’s voice. It makes him sad, in a detached sort of way, so he apologetically says, “I’m okay...” He’s still feeling pretty fucked up, but the words are more for Rich’s sake than his own. 

“Holy shit,” Rich sighs for what seems like the billionth time. They stay like that for a moment, both recovering in the freezing stairwell. Michael’s body hurts, but not sharply enough that he thinks anything’s broken. His weight must have shifted his body’s position in the fall. Still, he’s going to be black and blue for a while. This is going to be fun to explain to his parents. Hopefully they’ll let him take a couple days off school? Maybe he can go back to being a planet instead of a person?

“You still okay, bro?” Rich asks, nudging him out of his thoughts.

Michael’s about to reply when there is a series of slamming sounds, each louder than the last as the origin hurries closer. Distracted, Michael frowns. “What’s--”

Rich stiffens behind him. “Oh, shit, _Jeremy.”_

“What?” Michael cranes his neck to look at Rich, but can’t really get an angle.

“So...” Rich begins sheepishly. “You quit talking and no was coming and I was scared? So, like, I called Jeremy? And he didn’t answer so I may have, uh, left a pretty freaked out message?”

“What kind of mess-- hey, wait! You could get to your phone this whole time?!”

“I- I panicked!” Rich argues. “I didn’t want to drop you and I wasn’t thinking and you blacked out after I _specifically asked you not to--_ and, I mean, I _did_ end up dropping you, so--”

The door in front of them flies open, nearly whacking Michael’s tingly legs on its way to slam against the brick wall behind it. And there’s Jeremy.

His face is red and his eyes are wild, darting around without seeing as they search until they finally lock onto Michael on the floor. In a microsecond, Jeremy’s on his knees in front of the other two.

Rich’s hands are on Michael’s shoulders again and he’s pushed upright, like Rich is presenting Michael to Jeremy for evaluation. Jeremy apparently wants to do exactly that. He grabs Michael’s face urgently, looking him over like a mother might her infant before he’s even said a word. “What the fuck, what the fuck?!” Jeremy mumbles under his breath as he stares into Michael’s eyes worriedly. He’s smashing Michael’s cheeks together, which is less than great, but Michael doesn’t have the strength to put up a fight. “What the fuck happened?! Are you okay?!”

Michael is caught off guard by his tone, but Jeremy doesn’t give him a chance to answer anyway. Instead, he immediately looks to Rich. “Is he okay?! What happened?!”

“I’m okay,” Michael tries, face still smooshed. 

“I am _so_ sorry, dude,” Rich says uncharacteristically seriously. Strangely, he’s talking to Jeremy, not Michael. “I panicked and I wasn’t thinking, I didn’t mean to give you a heart attack, Jeremy--”

“You said he was _dead!_ You said you _killed_ him!” Jeremy’s voice cracks and the shrillness of it pierces their ears as it echoes.

“Wait, what?”

Jeremy looks at Michael again, finally releasing his death hold on his best friend’s face. He sighs shakily, trying to calm himself now that he realizes everything is (more or less) alright. “Seriously, what happened? And what’s up with your face?”

Michael blinks. “My face?”

Jeremy pulls out his phone and Michael looks at himself in the black, reflective surface. His vision without his glasses still leaves much to be desired, but there are dark, sort of squiggly lines next to his right eye. Clumsily getting his arms back into the sleeves of his hoodie, he raises an arm and touches the marks. “Burst blood vessels, I guess? Was I upside down that long? How long was I out for?” he asks, sitting up under his own power and turning to face Rich.

“Upside down…?” Jeremy mutters, struggling to wrap his head around what could have possibly happened.

“That looks _sick,_ dude,” Rich marvels, instead of answering either boy’s question. “You look like you got bit by a zombie and you’re just starting to turn. It’s bad-ass.” Rich tilts his head slightly now, with a strange look on his face. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you without your glasses.”

“Well, I mean, _yeah,”_ Michael replies obviously. “I need them to see?”

“No, it’s just-- you look really...”

“Really what?” Michael raises an eyebrow.

“Is no one gonna tell me why Michael was upside down?!” Jeremy shouts. Rich and Michael flinch.

“Oh, yeah, he fell,” Rich explains, pointing up to the landing above them. “And, like, I caught him, but I couldn’t pull him up-- been neglecting arm day, right? I gotta get on that. So anyway, he couldn’t move his arms or anything to help and I ended up dropping him right after I called you. It was crazy, man.”

Jeremy squints at Rich, wondering how he’s ended up with more questions instead of answers. “You-- but-- why couldn’t you use your arms?” He turns his attention back to Michael, concern on his face.

Michael waves his hands in an effort to dispel his friend’s worry. “There’s not, like, anything wrong with my arms. See? It’s just, first it was the straitjacket Rich tied my hoodie into, and then I blacked out, so I wasn’t doing _anything.”_

Jeremy’s head whips from Rich’s face down to Michael’s slouched form and back, his brain trying to make any sense of what the others are saying at all. “Why did you tie him up?” Jeremy asks in a low tone, eyes narrowed threateningly. He thinks he’s being intimidating. He’s not.

“He was totally okay with it! Weren’t you, Michael?”

“Yeah, it was great. Just not the stuff after.”

Jeremy closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose. After a moment of silent reflection on all the choices he’s made in life that lead to being friends with people like these two, he sighs and stands. “Let’s just get out of here. Mr. Reyes is gonna kill me for taking off like that.” He extends a hand down to Michael as Rich hops excitedly to his own feet. Michael takes it and allows Jeremy to haul his exhausted and aching body up from the floor.

It’s too much, too soon, though; as soon as he’s on his feet, his wobbly, bloodless legs decide they can’t hold him after all. The world tilts a little, but corrects itself when Michael crashes into Jeremy’s chest. Jeremy tightly wraps his arms around Michael’s waist, pinning his arms down not unlike Rich’s “straitjacket” had earlier. Behind him, Rich uselessly sticks his arms out, like he thinks Michael might somehow fall backwards despite having just gone forward. As tightly as Jeremy’s holding him, though, Michael’s not going anywhere.

“M-Michael! Oh my god, are you okay?!”

Michael’s face is pressed into the taller boy’s shirt so closely he can barely breathe. He tries not to think about how nice Jeremy smells today. “I’m good,” he promises, voice muffled. “It feels like my legs are asleep.”

Jeremy looks at Rich, silently begging for help. Instead, Rich points out the obvious: “Dude, if you can’t walk, you can’t drive.”

“Oh,” Michael notes dully.

“I don’t have my license,” Jeremy says, “and my dad will freak if he finds out I drove without one _again.”_ At Rich’s questioning look, Jeremy adds, embarrassed, “I’m a bad test taker, okay? I psych myself out as soon as the lady at the DMV gets in.”

_“Oooookay,_ well, I guess it’s up to me,” Rich volunteers, standing heroically with his hands on his hips. “I mean, I’m still not supposed to be driving, so if we get pulled over, we gotta switch seats really fast. I can totally do it, though.”

Michael doesn’t doubt that Rich is back to driving like usual-- it’s just that he’s _seen_ what Rich drives like normally, and his mothers would have a heart attack if they found out he let _Rich Goranski_ drive his car.

Just as he’s about to suggest they camp out for a while until Michael’s legs will hold him, a ray of light shines upon them from the doorway. “Jeremy! There you… are?” 

 

“Chr- Christine!”

Her eyes drift from one boy to another until she settles on Jeremy. He’s still standing there, arms around Michael in a tight embrace. Michael feels his face flush, thinking he must look like a swooning woman on a shitty romance novel cover. Judging by the color on Jeremy’s face, he’s equally embarrassed. 

“Uh, what’s... going on?”

“Uh--” Jeremy starts, not sure how he’s going to explain a situation he doesn’t really understand in the first place. Christine, though-- _brilliant, kind Christine_ \-- saves them from herself. Her attention has gone elsewhere.

“Hey, are those glasses?” she asks curiously, pointing to an unreachable window near the ceiling. How they flew that far and how she spotted them are mysteries known only to the universe.

“Yeah, those are Michael’s,” Rich replies like it’s nothing.

Michael groans miserable into Jeremy’s chest. Of course.

“Hey, Christine, you have a car, right? Can you give us a ride?”

Jeremy’s about to scold Rich for bluntly imposing on Christine when she probably has other stuff to do, but the girl eagerly nods. “Yeah, no problem! I just got it the other day, my dad’s helping me pay for it, it’s-- well, I wanted this other car, but it was _expensive_ and I’m already attached to this one now, you guys should totally help me name it, it’s _yellow,_ come see!” 

She runs out into the hall without looking back. 

Jeremy hesitantly releases Michael, who wobbles but remains standing, if only for the moment. Rich crouches in front of Michael and says, “Get on, dude.”

Jeremy and Michael exchange bewildered glances, but Michael can already feel his body shaking from the effort of remaining on his feet. Why not accept the help, if Rich’s offering? He climbs onto his friend’s back awkwardly, feeling small even though he’s got a couple inches on Rich (though, so does everyone). He wraps his arms around Rich’s neck just a bit too tightly, but Rich doesn’t complain. Jeremy holds up his phone and snaps a pic (Michael grinning, Rich crossing his eyes as hard as he can).

“Well,” Jeremy sighs, a smile on his lips. This whole thing has been ridiculous. “We better catch her before she takes off without us.”

Rich suddenly _neighs like a fucking horse_ and it’s so abrupt and bizarre that Michael laughs so hard he almost falls off. “Follow that drama geek!” Michael commands. They take off through the dim, graffiti-ed hallway, Jeremy lagging behind because he can’t laugh and run at the same time.

The outer halls are still freezing, but (and maybe it’s just the blood coming back to his limbs) Michael feels warm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Sorry about how cringey that last line is, I've been possessed by the ghost of a Lifetime movie or some shit. Also, don't forget to throw me name suggestions for Michael's moms and Jeremy's dad (if he doesn't have one in the book, I guess?)


	3. Braving the Storm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. I decided to name Jeremy's dad Ben. The chapter with Michael's moms is more or less done, but I want to edit it a bit more, and I think I can actually get away with not naming them because they're not as much of a focus as dear old Dad Heere.  
> 2\. Michael's weed guy is the same dude that sells him novelty sodas at Spencer's. He and Jeremy have agreed that Michael needs to keep this a secret from Jeremy because Jeremy cracks under pressure and he'll give them up if either of them ever gets caught with weed.  
> 3\. There're a few suicidal references in this chapter from Michael, with varying levels of seriousness, but no worse than in MitB itself. There's also a VERY brief discussion of some well-meaning but slightly casually homophobic tendencies.
> 
> Let's angst together <3

Benjamin Heere whistles a little tune as he pulls into the dark driveway. Not even the near-monsoon he’s had to drive home in or the late night he’s had can get him down. It’s been a good couple of days, weeks, _months_ at the office. He’d been nervous about getting back into the swing of things when he finally got out of his wife-leaving-and-teenager-rebelling slump, but it’s been smooth sailing ever since he got the promotion.

The slight raise is nice, sure, but his son’s opinion of him is the better prize by far, if he had to choose.

A flash of lightning reminds him it’s a good idea to get out of the wet, metal box. He hops out of the car, the freezing downpour immediately soaking the shoulders of his suit-jacket, but he can’t help but pause to admire his ride in the meek light peeking through the storm clouds. It’s the newest car he’s ever owned (last year’s model!) and he’s been brainstorming with Jeremy on what to name it. That’s what you do when you get a nice car, right? 

Unable to keep the smile off his face, Ben gives the car a pat on its wet hood like it’s his trusty steed, and makes his way to the house, hovering over his briefcase to protect its contents from the storm. He unlocks the front door, then turns to lock the car from the doorway, letting out a giddy squeak since there’s no one out to overhear. He’s had it a few weeks now, and he still can’t help but be happy when he hears the little _“beep!”_

“Jeremy!” he calls, entering, “You home, son?”

There’s no answer, which is typical. It’s pretty late (close to 11), so he’s probably in the shower (Jeremy takes _awfully_ long showers, is that normal for boys? He’ll have to look it up in one of those new parenting books he bought).

He slips out of his shoes and drops his briefcase on the kitchen table (it’s so exciting to have a briefcase, he feels so _professional_ ). He’s all set to relax in front of the TV until it’s his turn to shower when his phone chimes loudly, startling him.

Ben doesn’t get a lot of texts; the only people who ever need to get a hold of him are his boss and Jeremy. The number that pops up isn’t in his contacts, but it looks familiar and the contents give away their sender as soon as he opens the message.

_[Received 10:56 pm}: youve got something of mine, care 2 send it over?? 17 years old, dumb tattoo, glasses?? school nite & all_

He barks out a laugh. He’s only ever spoken to either of Michael’s parents a few times when the boys were little, so he’s not sure how they got his number. He was never the one who dropped Jeremy off to play when they were younger; that had always been _her_ job. 

...Anyway.

Michael’s parents seem nice enough and Michael himself is a good kid, so Ben really doesn’t mind his son’s friend staying the night even if it _is_ a school night. Michael had been invaluable in getting Jeremy back before he was too far gone and Ben has overheard once or twice the boy defending him to Jeremy himself. He owes the kid a lot.

But, he might as well try to get into his parents’ good graces. Maybe he can get a couple of actual _adult_ friends outside of Steve in the next cubicle over.

_[Sent 10:58 pm]: 10-4 ma’am_

_[Received 10:58 pm]: we r willing 2 trade for the other 1 instead, hes a delight. Just make sure not to feed ours after midnight or w/e_

Ben smiles warmly and pockets the phone, heading for Jeremy’s room. He raps lightly on the door and then waits a 10 seconds (long enough for Jeremy to put away anything he doesn’t want his father to see, as is their agreement). When he hears no panicked shuffling, he assumes it’s… er, “safe,” and enters.

Jeremy is at his desk with his head in his arms, clearly asleep. He’s snoring a little and Ben considers leaving him be, but the boy’s going to end up in some real pain if he spends the night like that. Jeremy ends up stirring on his own anyway when his father closes the bedroom door behind him. He stretches his arms and rubs at his sore neck. “Oh, hey, Dad,” he yawns, turning to Ben with a pressure mark on his face. “How was work?”

“Great,” he replies eagerly, “how was school?”

“It was okay,” Jeremy shrugs. He knows his father wants more than a sentence-- it’s another part of the whole “better relationship” thing they’re trying to have-- so he racks his brain for something to report. “They let us pick our own partners for the science fair, so Michael and I get to work together.”

“Cool,” his father replies over-excitedly, like he’s an alien who’s not entirely sure what the word means but knows it’s a good thing. He resists the urge to do finger guns, that’s probably too much. “Speaking of your buddy, his parents just texted me. They want him home.”

Jeremy tilts his head in confusion. “He’s not here. He left to go home like--” he checks the time on his laptop-- “three hours ago?”

“Oh, okay,” Ben responds, assuming this is the end of the conversation.

_[Sent 11:02 pm]: j says he left a few hours ago sorry! :)_

The man sets his phone down on the desk and starts folding a discarded shirt on the bed. “You gotta hang ‘em up or they’ll get wrinkly, private. We talked about this.”

“Yeah, I know,” Jeremy sighs in annoyance.

“So, what are you doing for your proj--”

The obnoxious blaring of “Hit Me Baby (One More Time)” startled them both half to death. It takes a second for Ben to collect himself and fumble with his phone before he answers. Almost no one texts him, so he’s certainly not used to getting _calls._

Jeremy watches with interest as his dad answers, then has to hold the phone away from his ear so as not to be deafened. He can’t quite make out what the woman is saying, but she’s _loud._

“I-- no-- yes, let me just ask him,” Ben says, struggling to get a word in. He turns to Jeremy, holding the phone to his chest. The woman doesn’t stop shouting, but at least it’s muffled now. “What time did you say Michael left, again?”

“I don’t know, like eight? What’s going on? Is that his parents?” 

Ben nods, the returns his attention to the phone to repeat when Jeremy said. “He says around eight?” A pause, then he holds the phone down again and looks at his son. “Did he say he was going anywhere?”

“No? Did he not come home?” Jeremy asks, biting his lip worriedly.

Ignoring him for the moment, Ben relays the message to Michael’s moms, then adds, “Okay. Yeah, I’ll let you know if he does. Alright. Bye.” He shoves the phone into his pocket again and rubs his ringing ear. To Jeremy, he says, “Think you could text your friends and tell them Michael’s parents are looking for him?”

“I-- yeah,” Jeremy agrees hurriedly, tapping the on-screen keyboard. He sends a quick “where r u” to Michael first, then starts adding the Squad to a group text. There’s a faint buzz somewhere in the room, blending with the sound of the pouring rain outside. Something doesn’t sit well with him about this. “It’s not like him to be out this late without telling his parents. Something must have happened.”

Ben’s seen this before. “Now, Jeremy--”

“It’s still storming, right?” Jeremy asks distractedly, running to his window and pulling the curtain back. It is.

“I’m sure everything’s--”

“His car’s _really_ sketchy, Dad. And he’s needed new tires for a year, but he keeps buying games instead!”

“Jeremy,” his father interrupts, using a lower tone to break through to his son. He places a hand on Jeremy’s shoulder and makes him sit on the bed. “Stop getting yourself all worked up, son. He probably ran into someone he knows and lost track of time. He does that when he’s here all the time.”

“He wouldn’t do that on a school night, his parents would flip!” Jeremy counters, opting not to point out that Michael has no problem keeping track of the time when he’s with anyone else. That’s a Jeremy-exclusive. “And he’d let someone know if he did. It’s just… I don’t know. It’s weird, right? I know it’s probably nothing, but still...” He trails off, looking at his phone. “Michael always answers my texts right away, even if it’s three in the morning. I know it’s probably nothing, but I’m just worried.”

“I understand,” Ben consoles, sitting next to him. He may not have the same anxiety issues that his son does, but he knows how it affects him. In the brief silence, there is another buzzing noise. “What’s that?”

The two exchange glances, confused. Another buzz, and this time they figure out where it’s coming from.

Jeremy reaches down the gap between his bed and the wall, feeling around blindly until he touches the familiar shape. He pulls out Michael’s phone. “Guess that explains why he hasn’t answered.”

“I told you there would be a reasonable explanation.”

This does nothing to untie the knots in Jeremy’s stomach, however. His best friend has disappeared at night, in shitty weather, in a shitty car, and he has no way to call for help if he needs it. “Can I take the car and look around? Just so I know he’s okay?”

“Jeremy, he’s fine.”

“Y-you don’t know that!” Jeremy exclaims. His father looks startled by the sudden outburst, and he immediately feels bad. He softens his voice to a near-whisper. “Sorry, Dad. It’s just that if there’s any chance he needs help… I mean, I’ve already abandoned him once.”

There is a prolonged moment of silence in which neither of them look at the other. Then, Ben puts an arm around Jeremy’s shoulders. “Go to bed. You’ve got school in the morning.”

“But, Dad! I--”

_“I’ll_ go drive around, see if I spot his car anywhere, alright? Just to give you peace of mind.”

If he has to swing by the drive-thru for some caffeine in the morning on his way to the office, so be it. Jeremy’s nerves have been shot since this whole business with the, uh… “squid?” There sure are some terrifying drugs out there these days, and even though Jeremy's doing better, the experience clearly still affects him. Ben’s more than willing to sacrifice a little sleep if it means quieting his boy’s fears.

Jeremy starts to protest. After all, he knows Michael the best and thus knows where to look. He also _owes_ Michael any help he can give after what Michael did for him. Especially after how he made Michael _feel._ Jeremy had been blind to what he’d done at first; through the filter of the Squip, cutting Michael loose hadn’t seemed like a big deal. And Michael had forgiven him so easily, when he finally got his apology.

Jeremy hadn’t realized until the first time Michael invited him over, after he got out of the hospital. Michael’s lovely parents, who had always treated Jeremy like their own son, kicked him right the fuck out. It had taken days of Michael arguing with his parents just to get them not to outright forbid him from hanging around Jeremy (not that he’d listened). Jeremy had expected them to be mad, but this was alarming. 

Their overreaction was never really explained to him (Michael didn’t want to talk about it, and their relationship was still too fragile for Jeremy to be comfortable pushing any limits).

But his relationship with his dad has changed now, too. He’s no longer an embarrassing doormat of a man-- he’s a mostly-non-embarrassing guy who’s finally demanding a little respect for himself. It’s hard, sometimes, but Jeremy is trying to do his part. Now that his father is actually trying to be a parent, Jeremy owes it to him to listen and give his father a certain amount of respect.

That’s what keeps him from opening his mouth. He knows he needs to trust.

“...Okay. Thanks, Dad.”

“Don’t worry about it,” the man says, knowing Jeremy can’t help _but_ to worry. He squeezes Jeremy’s shoulder and stands to head out. There’s no point in stopping to change or anything if he’s just going to get soaked again. “I’ll be back soon. I know you’re all amped up, but at least try to get some sleep?”

Jeremy nods, trying to replace his anxiety with his father’s words. He rubs at Michael’s phone like it’s a magic lamp. “Thanks,” he sighs again, thinking of something he can do to help. “I’ll turn the volume on his phone up in case he realizes it’s gone and tries to--”

_“Two to the one from the one to the three // I like good pussy and I like good tree // smoke so much weed you wouldn't believe // and I get more ass than a toilet seat--”_

Jeremy’s face heats up as he stares resolutely at the phone, refusing to look at his father. 

“...”

“...”

“… You know what, I’ll probably hear it vibrating, so--”

\- - - - - - - 

Michael is neither dead nor dying in a gutter as his parents (and Jeremy) think. He’s stomping down a dark road in the downpour, crying angry tears. 

His parents prefer him home earlier, but curfew is 10pm, so he’d gone for a drive to collect his thoughts after leaving Jeremy’s house. He has to do this more and more these days, after he’s spent time with Jeremy. He never would have thought that being around Jeremy like old times would mess his head up more than Jeremy ditching him did. At least when Jeremy’s Squip was active, Michael could think coherently, even if he was depressed. Now his thoughts are so scrambled he doesn’t know how he feels about _anything._

He’d realized he’d left his phone behind almost as soon as he’d gotten into his car, but he sort of liked the idea of forgoing human contact so he could have some peace (just him and the music blaring). Jeremy would notice and bring it to school or Michael could come get it himself tomorrow. He doesn’t need it, as long as he’s got his music.

He doesn’t really need _anything,_ but music.

….Maybe Jeremy. But, of course, he can’t have him.

His luck being what it is (non-existent), tonight is the night the Cruiser finally sputtered its last breath. Just as Michael had begun the journey back home around 9-ish, planning to pull in right at curfew, it had just… turned itself off.

Michael’s had trouble with it before, so he hadn’t thought much of it. It was scary, sure, because he’d still been driving and the weather is so bad, but at least there aren’t many people out of the road tonight. He’d coasted to the side of the road slowly and then tried to restart it. That always did the trick. 

Not this time.

He’d spent a long time trying to start the Shit-Mobile (Jeremy likes to call it “Tom” because of Tom Cruise, but Michael thinks his name is more applicable) over and over before eventually giving up and using it as an outlet for his aggression. His “forgotten” phone means he has no flashlight, and it’s not like Michael has any understanding of how to fix whatever is wrong with the Cruiser anyway. 

Instead, he’d sat there and kicked things. It didn’t cause the engine to miraculously fire up, but it had made Michael feel marginally better. Deciding against camping out in the car overnight (no starting meant no heat, and it’s cold even without the rain. Also, he’s afraid of murderers), he’d scrounged around the dark floor of the front passenger side until he’d found a red sharpie that must have fallen out of his backpack.

He’d clambered out into the pitch-black downpour, wiped the dirty water with a sleeve, and scribbled a note directly onto the side of the Shit-Mobile itself. It already looks terrible, so he’d figured it didn’t matter if he made it worse-- the thing’s got no resale value anyway. You’d have to pay someone to take it. 

Then, he’d started walking.

To say Michael regrets his decision now would be an understatement. It’s freezing, dark, and there’s no actual sidewalk to use so he’s slightly afraid he’ll be hit by a car even though he’s staying as far to the side of the road as he can. He’s been walking for _ever,_ but thanks to his little soul-searching drive, he’s still far from home.

It crosses his mind, briefly, to borrow a phone and call someone. The problem there is that he always depends on his phone to keep track of numbers. The only one he has memorized is his Weed Guy TM (can’t have his moms asking about him), and that dude is definitely not someone Michael wants to get into a car with on an abandoned, unlit road. 

He’s only seen a couple people anyway, and there were all scary as fuck. Turns out there aren’t a lot of normal, non-murderer human beings wandering around in the rain this time of night. 

His beloved 7-Eleven is roughly halfway to his house from where he is, but it’s definitely closed by now (it’s called 7-Eleven for a reason). He doesn’t know what time it is without his phone, but it’s gotta be past midnight by now, if not later. He’s miserable and freezing, and he wills his mind to think about anything else.

_Jeremy,_ his brain sings, _Jeremy, Jeremy, Jeremy~_  
Michael shakes his head, trying to jumble up his thoughts and start over. Jeremy makes him feel warm inside, but the inescapable knowledge that he’s unattainable has tainted his place in Michael’s mind and thinking of him only makes Michael more miserable, not less.

_I can’t have him, I can’t have him,_ his heart croons. _He doesn’t want me, just her._

And why wouldn’t he? Christine is beautiful and funny and probably going to be famous someday. And she’s so nice Michael can’t even hate her for it. She deserves the best and after everything Jeremy’s been through, he deserves her, too. 

Michael wants to be happy for Jeremy; he really, truly does. He’s spent so long encouraging Jeremy to tell her how he feels, even if he never really believed it would happen. Jeremy’s liked her for so long, has gone through Hell to be with her. They’ve had one date already, not long after Jeremy recovered. It had been a bit too soon, apparently, but although there hasn’t been another date since, it’s only a matter of time.

Jeremy and Christine aren’t boyfriend and girlfriend yet, but they might as well be. They’re always sneaking off to talk in secret when the Squad hands out. (It pains Michael even more because he only tags along because Jeremy wants him to, in the first place. He’s getting to know them all better, but they’re still firmly “Jeremy’s friends” in Michael’s brain). Michael pretends not to notice Jeremy’s red face and Christine’s sparkling grin, pretends it doesn’t sting when someone asks what they’re talking about and they say it’s a secret.

Jeremy’s face always lights up when they’re together, and every time it weighs Michael’s heart down more because he knows he can’t make Jeremy beam the same way.

As if the universe wants to make him feel even worse, Michael’s foot catches the edge of a small pothole and he trips. He tears a hole in his jeans at the knee and skins the palms of his hands, and his fogged-up glasses fall off. He seethes silently for a few seconds before feeling around the soaked ground for them, like that girl from fucking _Scooby-Doo._

The water rushing into the sewer grate stops him in his search. He doesn’t have to see to know what’s happened. It hits him all at once and _it’s just too much._

He sobs, wrapping his arms around his torso as he loses control of his breathing. His car’s dead and he has no phone and it’s dark and scary and he’s alone and it’s cold and his hands burn and his parents are gonna kill him and Jeremy will never love him and the _fucking mole-people have his glasses--_

He gasps out another sob and staggers to his feet. It’s like the rest of his body’s on autopilot so he can devote all his brainpower to being miserable. His legs carry him, stiff and robotic,, and he just lets the freezing rain smack the tears off his face. He wishes, between the tears and the rain, he could drown.

Suddenly, he sees his shadow. There are headlights behind him.

\- - - - - - – - - - - - – - - 

_“Okay, so, like, I thought of some more places,”_ Jeremy’s voice offers, slightly fuzzy-sounding through the filters of phones and Bluetooth. He’s supposed to be asleep, but his father knows him too well to expect him to listen.

“The 7-Eleven was closed.”

_“Yeah, okay, so next I was thinking you could try the mall?”_

“The mall closes way before 7-Eleven, son,” Ben sighs.

There’s a frustrated silence in the car’s speakers for a moment, then Jeremy speaks. _“C-can you check anyway?”_ His voice has gone softer. _“Michael gets his-- well, he knows this guy who works at Spencer’s. Maybe he got distracted talking and didn’t leave right away?”_

“Jeremy,” his father begins, almost reprimandingly. He wants his son to feel better, but he’s starting to lose his patience. This is getting out of hand, it’s after midnight. Even if he’s never done it before, Michael is a teenager, and it’s not exactly unusual for a kid his age to break a few rules and stay out late.

Still… he admittedly would be pretty worried if Jeremy did the same. Hell, Jeremy _has_ done this before, and Ben had never been more stressed in his life-- not even during the divorce.

Neither of them say anything for a while, and Ben wonders if he’s been hung up on. There’s just the sound of pouring rain and windshield wipers.

Jeremy’s voice breaks through the silence, but it sounds small and faint beneath the rain. _“I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to him and I never got to...”_

“….’Never got to’ what?” his father asks, concerned.

_“I-- uh-- nevermind!”_ Jeremy exclaims, practically shouting all of a sudden. _“I- I’m gonna go, just keep me posted, okay?!”_

“S-sure, yeah--” but Jeremy’s already disconnected, in more ways than one.

Ben feels like he’s missing something. It makes him feel _old._ There was a time he probably had the same mindset Jeremy does, but now he’s clueless. How can he relate to his son when he can’t figure out what’s in the boy’s head? Maybe one of the books has advice about---

He slams on the breaks, thankful both that there’s no one immediately behind him and that he isn’t hydroplaning. There’s a run-down, white PT Cruiser parked on the side of the road, two tires sinking deep into the mud. It’s got a small dent with fire hydrant-colored paint speckled in it on the front, and the back window is covered in stickers. He’d recognize that death machine anywhere. He’s certainly seen it parked outside his house often enough.

Michael’s car.

It doesn’t look damaged (well, no more than it usually does), but an air of uneasiness settles in his stomach at the sight. If something happened to the boy after all… As a father, he’s filled with dread. He pulls over and climbs out to take a look, making no effort to shield himself from the storm. The sound of pellets of water hitting metal is deafening.

He cups his hands together on the driver’s side window and looks in. No Michael. Just a scribbled-upon backpack and an unopened bag of skittles. The car’s fine(-ish) and there aren’t any signs of a struggle or anything, but surely Michael’s parents would have let him know if they found him?

He straightens and looks down, and sees a smeared message, scrawled on the soaked surface without a change for the marker to dry and properly set. It looks like blood for a split second, which is a nice little heart attack for him, before he takes a closer look. Despite the running and smudging, he can pretty much make out the message:

_“broken down-- coming back 4 so pls don’t tow!!!”_

It doesn’t help much in regards to tracking down the missing teenager, but at least it doesn’t say “Croatoan.”

He jumps back into his own car, wiping his wet hands on his equally wet pants before he clutches the wheel. If Michael’s out here somewhere walking (or God forbid, hitchhiking), he’s probably headed in the direction his car’s pointed. It’s the way he wanted to go before he broke down, so hopefully his plans haven’t changed. 

It’s close to 1am when he spots a familiar figure. His red hoodie is darkened by the water and his pants are muddy, but there’s no mistaking it-- Michael.

He doesn’t seem to notice Ben until the car slows to a crawl, matching Michael’s walking speed. The teen whips around and squints at the vehicle, mouthing something. It occurs to Ben that Michael probably doesn’t recognize his new car right away. He seems to have forgotten his glasses, too.

Ben rolls down the front passenger window, ignoring the water pouring in, and leans across the seat. “Michael!” he calls over a clap of thunder, “Get in!”

“Mr. Heere?” Michael asks, confused. He doesn’t hesitate to get into the car, shivering as he closes the door. His freezing body feels colder now with the heated interior to compare itself to. Michael swallows to clear the sorrow from his throat and gives a brief, disoriented, “Thanks.” He can feel the older man glancing at him then back to the road several times as he starts speeding up again. 

Ben knows he ought to call Michael’s parents, but they’re not listed in his contacts so he can’t use the Bluetooth to call them, and he can’t drive and type on his phone at the same time (even more so in conditions like this). He reaches over to the console cup holder his cell’s in, planning to hand Michael the phone ( _surely_ he knows his own parents’ numbers), but stops. There’s something off here, and it pops up in Ben’s brain for the first time that the sullen teenager next to him might be perpetrating some strange plot to run away from home. The idea doesn’t mesh with the facts-- why would Michael get into the car of someone who is definitely going to take him home if he’s running away? Still, something is clearly up.

….He also doesn’t want to hand his phone to someone he knows breaks everything he touches. It’s mostly that. He’ll just call Jeremy and have Jeremy spread the word. But first:

“So,” Ben starts, switching lanes, “where are you headed, soldier?”

“Home.”

That’s one concern cleared up, at any rate. “Do you know how late it is? Your moms are pretty upset.”

Michael squirms in his seat. “I know. I didn’t mean to-- my car’s--”

Ben waves a hand dismissively. “I saw it, it’s alright. I’m sure your parents will understand. They’ll just be happy you’re safe.”

Something in the tone of his voice sort of irks Michael. Mr. Heere does this every so often, more since the “Squipcident” (Rich’s name for it, not his). He tries to “dad” Michael. The man means well, but he’s got it in his head that Michael needs his “sage advice” because he doesn’t have a father of his own, except in the biological sense. Some cousin of his non-birth mom’s who lives in the Philippines-- they’d wanted their child to look like both of them. The guy sends Michael money on his birthday every year and Michael’s moms send him his school pictures, but they’ve never met or anything. Michael thinks his parents are more than enough. 

Mr. Heere means well and usually doesn’t overstep his boundaries (after all, the two of them almost never talk without Jeremy present), but this whole not-so-subtle effort to be the “positive male influence” in an “unfortunately fatherless child’s life” is… not one of Michael’s favorite things about the guy. If Michael knows the man, he’s about to get a lecture starting with “When I was your age” and he really doesn’t have the patience to humor him right now.

But then, Ben does something else. He hits a button near the steering wheel and commands, “Call Jeremy.”

Michael turns his head to stare at him. There’s a beep, and then the robotic voice of a woman confirms stiltedly through the car’s speakers: _“Calling Jeremy.”_

Michael remains still and silent as it rings. The worst part is that Mr. Heere probably thinks he’s helping. His logic is sound. It should cheer him up-- Michael loves Jeremy, but that’s exactly the problem. He needs time to himself after hours with Jeremy just to get himself back together, so he’s not a complete mess of thoughts and feelings. This strange, paradoxical feeling (his love of Jeremy and the pain he feels when he loves him the most) scrambles his brains. He needs distance. That’s why he hadn’t headed directly home in the first place. After everything that’s happened tonight, he’s in an even worse emotional mindset than he already had been. 

Hearing Jeremy’s voice, speaking with him before he’s had time to relax and mentally prepare himself… it’s only going to hurt more.

The third ring cuts off abruptly, and Jeremy’s voice echoes through the silent car. _“Dad! Okay, so Brooke and Christine both got back to me, they haven’t seen him. Everyone else must be in bed or something, but I’ll keep trying. Have you been to the mall?”_

Ben doesn’t say anything, and after a few seconds of awkwardness, Michael gives him a confused look. Ben glances back and gestures for Michael to speak. He points out the receiver, a tiny circular device on the ceiling. 

_“Hello? Dad?”_

And Michael really has no choice. He sighs, “...How mad are my parents?”

There’s an oddly hinged gasp, then Jeremy practically blows out the speakers: _“MICHAEL! Dude, where have you been?! Your moms are freaking out! Oh, my god, do you know what time it is? It’s tomorrow already!”_

Michael’s heart flutters a little, and he can’t help but press a hand against it. It should feel nice, but all he feels is lonely inside himself, and a twinge of jealousy as his brain won’t let go of that one sentence: _“Brooke and **Christine** both got back to me.” _

Christine’s up this late, waiting to be there for Jeremy when he needs someone, and Jeremy calls her right away because he knows she’ll be there. Why does it have to be her? 

_Why shouldn’t it be?_ His brain sneers.

_“...Michael? Are you still there?”_

“Um, yeah, sorry,” he replies, voice shaking. It doesn’t go unnoticed.

_“Are you okay?”_

Michael opens his mouth to reply, but he can’t make a sound. He’ll either have to tell Jeremy the truth (which he can never do), or he’ll have to lie (which would pile onto the rest of his lies and crush him). 

Oddly, it’s Ben who saves him. 

“Oh, Jeremy,” he says distantly, looking at Michael with the angle of the rear-view mirror. “The weather and everything, it sounds like the connection’s bad. We’ll see you at the house, alright?”

_“Uh, okay? I guess… drive safe?”_

Mr. Heere hits the button near the wheel again, and the call is disconnected with a click. “He’ll let your parents know and they can just meet us at our place, that sound good?” Michael nods stiffly, keeping his gaze directed out the window. Every drop of rain hitting the glass feels like a tiny knife stabbing Michael’s heart, and the rumble of thunder in the distance makes him wish a bolt of lightning would come down and strike him dead. “So,” the man begins again, “we’ve got a few before we’re there. Spill.”

“What?” Michael asks quietly, but his voice gives him away immediately.

“What’s wrong? It’s gotta be something serious if you’re not telling Jeremy about it. I know how close you boys are.”

Michael takes a steadying breath and holds it until he’s dizzy. He exhales as calmly as he can, but it’s too loud and shaky and before he knows it, there are hot tears streaming down his frozen face.

If Mr. Heere wants to play psychologist, fuck it. So be it.

“Did it hurt really bad when your wife left?” Ben’s grip tightens on the wheel, and Michael instantly regrets asking. “I- I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have asked. I don’t know what came over me,” he whispers.

“...No, no. It’s alright,” he responds, somber in a way Michael hadn’t known he was capable of. “Is that what this is about? Are you having trouble at home? Your parents--”

“It’s not that,” Michael cuts him off. “I just…” He desperately hopes for the man to let him off, change the subject to one less painful so he doesn’t open his big mouth and say anything else he regrets. Instead, Ben waits quietly, patiently, for the boy to continue. The next time Michael tries to speak, his voice is barely a breath in his scratchy throat. “What do you… How do you deal when you love someone and they pick someone else?”

There’s a warm-hearted chuckle that somehow doesn’t belittle Michael. “You having girl trouble? I don’t know if I can help much with that, I’ve been out of practice for a long time, kiddo.”

“S-something like that.” If Michael sinks any further down into his seat, he’ll be on the floor. The conversation lapses into silence. He could really use that lightning strike right about now.

They round the last turn and Michael can see the lights on in Jeremy and Ben’s house, standing out against the dark buildings of all the neighbors. Honestly, he’s surprised his moms aren’t already there-- they’ve been known to break several speed limits to get to their son. And God help you if you pull them over.

As they slow and pull into the driveway, Mr. Heere turns to him again. “Look, Michael. I know I haven’t really been the best role model for Jeremy in the past, but I’m trying to change. That’s all I can tell you; people change. That’s how life works. Either this girl will change and see she likes you, too, or you’ll change and see you’re better off without her. And you’ll survive. Trust me. The world can throw a lot of things at you, but try to remember that being a teenager is the hardest part of your life. You’ve almost made it through, and it only gets better from here. Like a level in one of your video games.”

Michael blinks. That actually… sort of makes him feel better. His heart doesn’t hurt any less, exactly, but it feels like some of the weight has lifted. 

“I… Thanks, Mr. Heere.”

“No problem,” Ben says jovially, clapping a hand just a little too hard on Michael’s shoulder. “Now, get yourself together and let’s go inside.” He climbs out of the car back into the rain and waits for Michael to follow, like he half expects the teenager to run off like a wounded animal. 

Michael trails behind him.

“And, listen. Do your parents know what kind of music you’re listening to? I was young once, too, and I remember the whole ‘sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll’ thing, but I gotta say-- your phone went off earlier and that song is _vulgar,_ young man. I’m afraid I’m gonna have to let your moms know.”

Where is that lightning when you really, _really_ need it?

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

Michael is swept into a hug by the blur that is Jeremy Heere the second he’s through the doorway. The lights inside the house blind him; his eyes have been in the dark and without glasses for so long, he’s sort of forgotten how to see. It’s well past 1am and Jeremy is in his pajamas. Michael’s parents are on their way, and if Jeremy notices any tear streaks, he’s kind enough not to mention them.

“I was so worried, dude,” Jeremy admits, blushing sheepishly at the open display of emotions. 

“Sorry, man,” Michael breathes.

“You don’t have to apologize, Michael.”

The door closes behind the boys and a third voice reminds them that they aren’t the only people in the universe. “You _will_ have to apologize if you keep getting mud everywhere, actually,” Ben says, pointing to Michael’s clothes and the floor beneath him. “Jeremy, get your friend a change of clothes before he catches pneumonia. I’m taking a shower and going to bed.”

Before Michael has a chance to respond, Jeremy grabs his arm and tugs him up the stairs, calling, “Thanks, Dad!”

Jeremy ushers Michael into his bedroom and starts digging through his dresser, all the while jabbering nonstop about how worried he’s been, who he’s called, what they said, etc. Michael only has to put in an occasional “oh, really?” or “sorry” or “thanks.” 

Michael protests momentarily borrowing any of Jeremy’s clothes (if just talking to him messes with his head this much, wearing his clothes might just kill him), but he really is filthy and freezing, and he’s calmed his nerves enough by now that he can put up with it. He doesn’t want to change in front of Jeremy (something that’s only become an issue in the past few months-- they’ve been friends since kindergarten after all, and that stuff didn’t matter until he realized his feelings), but Jeremy is so distracted running around his room looking for articles of clothing he can wear that he’s not looking anyway.

When all is said and done, Michael’s got a t-shirt that hangs off him like a dress (it’s big on Jeremy, too, but he has to buy them large because otherwise they won’t be long enough for his tall frame), a pair of cinched-waist sweatpants, and some mismatched Christmas socks with fuzzy snowmen on them. A shallow part of him tells him he looks ridiculous, but it’s the middle of the night and his parents will be there to pick him up soon, so who cares?

Jeremy notices his skinned palms before Michael can mention them (he’s all but forgotten about the physical pain in all his focus on the emotional). His dad’s still in the shower, so he leads Michael down to the kitchen and they stand together at the sink, rinsing his hands under cool-- but not freezing-- water. Michael hisses at first and draws his hands back instinctively.

“I know it hurts,” Jeremy says quietly, stepping behind him. He takes Michael’s hands in his and brings them back under the water gently. “But it’ll be okay. I promise.”

And when Jeremy says it, Michael can’t help but know it’s true.

The water doesn’t sting this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Michael's [ringtone](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4feUSTS21-8&t=20s).  
> I dunno what horrific cringey meme Jeremy would have as his. I think he'd have a ridiculous one, but he'd keep it on vibrate all the time because he's actually super afraid of someone hearing it.


	4. Scratches, Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for no update in so long, my life is sort of bonkers rn, in both good ways and bad. 
> 
> This one's a two-parter! So here's part one.
> 
> I kind of imagine Jake moving in with his grandparents after his house burns down, seeing as his parents are awol and, assuming he's a junior like the boyfs, he's probably not quite 18 yet. I think they're prob waaaay different people from his parents control-wise, and they probably want to save the family rep, you know? But that's not important, I guess.
> 
> There's kinda some scary medical-issue related stuff towards the end, so pls be advised and heed the tags.
> 
> Thanks for reading, especially if you've waited for my slow ass this whole time!

Michael doesn’t know how he feels about Jake.

Jake’d been kind of a bully before, and unlike Rich he doesn’t have the excuse of a computer in his brain telling him what to do. The closest thing to a conversation pre-Squipcident they’ve ever had was the time in 7th grade when Jake stole Michael’s Princess Peach pencil case. He’s said he’d only give it back if Michael let him copy off of his test. Michael had counter-threatened that if Jake didn’t give it back, he’d get Jeremy to cry and every teacher would pity him and give Jake detention without even asking what he’d done.

Instead of being intimidated, Jake had been impressed. He’d turned around as soon as the teacher stepped out and started throwing questions at Jeremy. How did he cry on command? Did he just think about sad stuff? Could he _stop_ crying on command, too? What if he started fake-crying and made himself so sad he started real-crying?

Jeremy had been pretty confused about the sudden interrogation, but it had given Michael the chance to kick Jake in the shin and snatch back his pencil case. Crisis averted.

But, Jake had never been as aggressive as Rich (few people are), and as soon as Rich had stopped being a piece of shit, Jake followed suit. For all his cool, alpha-male reputation, Jake is apparently way more of a follower than a leader.

Still, it’s not like Michael has anything in common with Jake other than Jeremy, so he’s not looking forward to this.

See, Jeremy is mostly caught up on school work now, but he’s been putting off a lot of his Spanish work. With all the subjects he’s needed to catch up on, _something_ had to get pushed off for a while. His Spanish teacher just happens to be the only teacher understanding enough to let him. Maybe it’s because the class is an elective, but every other teacher acts like their class should be his highest (or only) priority. Jeremy can only do so many things at once.

Michael is pleased to be in the same class, because his placement had been the result of a _genius_ evil plan. Basically, the school advisers want students who speak Spanish at home to take another language; be more worldly, appreciate other cultures, and whatnot. Michael’s not about making things harder for himself than they have to be, so he’d intentionally bombed the placement test. Not only does he get to have another class with Jeremy, but he has an easy A. 

He just has to steer his moms away from his Spanish teacher’s room on those “Parent-Teacher Nights,” because, wow, _awkward._ So far, so good.

Jake is in the class, too. He hasn’t had to miss much school, which is surprising because of what happened to his legs, but, well… academics aren’t exactly the guy’s strong suit. So, Jake and Jeremy both need help with Spanish. As much as he loves Jeremy, Michael would ordinarily bail out of a situation like this without a second thought. After all, it’s not like this is _his_ problem.

…It sort of _is_ though. Michael’s been out of school a couple days this week with a nasty chest cold (no, he’s not contagious anymore, probably, so _certain_ people can stop conspicuously over-using handsanitizer every time he coughs, _Jeremy_ ). Now he’s got some catching up to do, too.

He’s got a cough, but it’s not _that_ bad-- his chest just aches from the days it _has_ been. His voice also totally goes out if he tries to raise it above an indoor speaking volume, which is a definite plus for his parents. He’s feeling considerably less dead today and (with the exception of all the usual emotional turmoil) he’s doing alright.

He still doesn’t want to hang out with Jake, though.

Thinking about it, the Squip Squad aren’t the problem; Michael is. After Jeremy had recovered, he’d introduced Michael to all of his new friends. They, understandably, had all been terribly excited and curious about the guy who “basically saved them.” It’s all a bit too much attention for Michael. They’re perfectly nice to him, nowadays, but honestly he’d rather have stayed “Headphones Kid.” He likes to be alone or with just Jeremy (alone more often than not, lately, because of what proximity to Jeremy does to his head).

Jake is almost a symbol of what Michael doesn’t like about all these new “friendships” he’s been forced into. He’s overly enthusiastic-- like Christine, but spread out over everything instead of just theater stuff. You could tell the guy that you spend your weekends painting dogs green and flying into the Sun and he’d probably laugh and say, “oh, man, that’s dope! Need any help?”

It just feels kind of disingenuous? Like, if that’s how Jake reacts to everything, how do you tell when he _actually_ gives a shit?

People are confusing, and Michael doesn’t need his life to be any more complicated than it already is.

“I think this is it,” Jeremy pipes up, stirring Michael from his thoughts. He’s pointing at one of the numerous houses up ahead, but the passenger seat is a slightly different vantage point, so Michael has no idea which house he’s referring to.

He doesn’t have to, though, because Jake emerges from a pale yellow Victorian and waves a hand. Jeremy waves back. Michael’s not sure what he’s supposed to do, so he sinks down a little, half-hiding behind the steering wheel, and tightens his grip. They park and Jeremy hops out. Michael, for a second, considers speeding off into the horizon. Jeremy’s expectant look is the only thing that stops him.

Michael sighs and climbs out, slamming the door behind him harder than he means to. The sound startles him, which is even more embarrassing considering he _caused_ it. _Oh no,_ he scolds internally, _today is not a freak-out day. No. Absolutely not._

He puts his headphones over his ears, but doesn’t connect them to anything. Music usually helps him feel better by being a distraction and providing a steady backing to the noise of life, but this way he’ll still be able to hear the others. The slight muffling of the world takes the edge off a little, at any rate.

Jeremy raises an eyebrow and looks that odd combination of confused and concerned he so often does. Thankfully, he doesn’t say anything, and neither does Jake.

“What up, broskis?!” Jake greets ear-piercingly. Jake’s gotta be the only person on Earth who can say stuff like that and still be considered cool. There’s something strangely stiff about Jake’s body language, though. He seems… nervous?

Jake and Jeremy do a fist bump and Jake turns to lead them inside. “Ok, so-- leave your shoes here, Grandma _hates_ when people wear shoes inside. And, uh, maybe like stand up a little straighter? Cool, cool. Uh, you can hang up your hoodie if you want to, Mi--”

The strange etiquette lesson halts abruptly before he can start, like, straightening up Jeremy and Michael’s hair or whatever, thankfully. An elderly woman with cold eyes rounds a corner into the foyer and stops. “Oh!” she exclaims, forcing a practiced smile. She acts as though she’s stumbled upon them by happenstance, but her mannerisms seem awfully scripted. “You must be Jacob’s friends. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Jake’s eyes keep darting to the others and back as he introduces them. “Y-yeah, Grandma. This is Jeremy,” he pauses to elbow Jeremy in the side. Jeremy takes the hint and offers the old woman his hand. “And this is Michael.” Now it’s Michael’s turn to shake her hand. It freaks him out (mostly because physical contact right now is… ugh, but also because the woman gives off a _really_ judgmental vibe. Like he’s in trouble for something and he hasn’t even done anything yet).

Her dainty old hand is as frozen as her “smile.” After the excruciatingly awkward introductions, they are mercifully freed of the witch. “Dearest,” she calls down the hall behind her, “are you ready to go?”

An old man comes shuffling around the bend, now. Michael hears Jeremy stifle a strangled noise next to him at the sight. The guy’s gotta be a thousand years old. If it weren’t for the cane and his perfectly ironed shirt, Michael would absolutely believe he’s witnessing the first real-life zombie. He looks like he died _decades_ ago. Michael half expects him to start droning for “braaaaaiiiins.”

He makes it to them (which takes forever) and doesn’t even seem to be able to see them. Jake has to stick an arm in front of the other boys and silently guide them to stand against the wall so his grandpa doesn’t run right into them. They all stand in pained silence as the man struggles into his shoes and back onto his feet before the elderly couple go to leave. “Jacob, dear, we’ll be back soon. I expect everything will be as we’ve left it?”

Jake laughs nervously. “Of course, Grandma. Have a safe drive.”

“WHAT?!” his undead grandfather shouts.

The man’s wife helps him out to the car and he _gets behind the wheel_. This man-- this _living zombie_ is apparently the one who’s driving. Michael is silently grateful that he and Jeremy are no longer on the road. Those two are gonna need Jake’s well-wishes.

Jake holds his plastered-on smile until he gets the door closed, then his shoulders slump in relief. The air in the room is breathable again. “Sorry, dudes,” he says sheepishly as he turns to face them. “Grandma’s kind of… well, she’s super proper. I think she liked you guys, though!”

“ _That’s_ what she’s like when he likes someone?!” Michael blurts. Jeremy shoots him a look for openly complaining about Jake’s scary grandparents, but come on. Michael gives no fucks. That lady is a witch and she’s resurrected the dead to be her personal driver.

“Yeah, well, mostly she was just hanging around to make sure you didn’t have Rich with you. They, uh, know what happened, so he’s not allowed anywhere near the house. I’m not supposed to be talking to him at school either, but it’s not like she’s gonna know, right?” He doesn’t sound convinced.

The official cause of the fire was ruled “uncertain,” but rumors get around fast. Also, Rich totally _did_ do it. Michael had asked when he’d been sitting with Jeremy in the hospital, when he’d first gotten to actually know Rich. Miserably depressed and rejected by the love of his life, Michael himself had left the party long before the fire started. When his parents had heard about what happened (they found out before him, somehow, he’d been _that_ out of the loop with his peers), they’d freaked. Even when he’d tried to explain he’d left before there was any danger, his moms wouldn’t stop fussing about smoke inhalation and his asthma.

Which is sort of understandable, sure. Their overprotectiveness is why he’s been absent from school for days over an illness most kids wouldn’t even miss once for. But the medication he takes daily has kept the attacks at bay for ages, so being sick is really the only time it’s of any concern.

Speaking of, the steps up to Jake’s room are _long_.

He takes a breath that’s right on the verge of something you could call “panting,” and there’s a tickle in his throat. Before he knows it, he’s coughing his aching lungs out.

“Not--” he wheezes, when he can, “I’m not contagious. I- I swear, dude.”

“You’re good, dude,” Jake laughs. He disappears from the top of the stairs and reappears with a bottled water. “Here. My room’s not as rad as my old one since I sorta... don’t have most of my stuff anymore, but Gramps let me plug in the mini fridge he had in the garage.”

Michael gratefully takes the water and downs half of it. He can feel Jeremy’s hand hovering behind him, ready to do… something. Pat him on the back? Console him? Push him up the stairs?

There’s a strange warmth radiating and it’s almost more than Michael can take.

“Thanks,” Michael croaks.

“Not a problem, my man.” Jake leads them to his bedroom and they toss their backpacks onto the floor. “Sorry, it’s kinda small.”

The room is indeed a little on the small side, which is typical for Victorian homes. Space is always the deal breaker when Michael gets high and binge-watches _House Hunters._ Still, it’s not _that_ small, especially since Jake’s got little more than a bed, dresser, and the aforementioned mini-fridge he’s borrowing from the World’s Oldest Man. 

He’s probably just used to his old house. Michael pulls his headphones down and takes a surveying look. It’s a stark contrast to his own room, where you can’t even see the walls; Jake has a singular poster of LeBron James. The walls are blank white and there’s this _hideous_ beige carpet… Stoned Michael would hate this place. _Carpets are the way of the past-- there’s probably decent wood flooring under there, come the fuck on!_

“So, uh,”Jeremy starts suddenly. “I guess Rich isn’t coming, then?”

Jake sighs. “Nah. I told him he could swing by as long as we’re careful not to let Grandma find out, but he didn’t want any part of it. I think he agrees with her, you know? Like, he doesn’t think he should be allowed around here-- or me-- either. I dunno, he gets kinda down on himself sometimes.”

Neither Michael nor Jeremy know how to respond to that, so a silence falls on the group. Jeremy fidgets uncomfortably. Michael bears it as long as he can until he gives in and blurts out: “Your grandpa’s super old, right? That’s crazy.”

He wants to punch himself in the face.

Jake doesn’t seem offended. “ _So_ old, dude! He’s cool, though. He just sits around and watches TV all day. Grandma doesn’t want to give me an allowance, but he slips me a few 20s every now and then. Sometimes he just gives me that gross candy only old people like, though. You never know what you’re gonna get.”

“’Circus Peanuts?’” Jeremy asks, “or those ‘Werther’s’ things?”

“’Circus Peanuts,’ that’s it! Rich always calls them ‘Circus Penis.’” Jake laughs fondly, like Rich is a long lost family member and not a guy he’ll literally see tomorrow at school.

Jeremy chuckles (which sends Michael’s heart soaring and then plummeting) and gets down to business. “So, uh, what should we do first?”

“Whoever has the least terrible handwriting, let me copy your biology notes,” Michael says, rummaging through his backpack for a notebook that’s not _completely_ full of doodles. “Ask me your Spanish questions and I’ll answer them. No promises about the spelling.”

“Sweet, thanks, bro!” Jake claps a hand onto Michael’s shoulder and he can’t help but flinch under it’s weight. Jake doesn’t notice (doesn’t care?), which is the best case scenario when Michael is feeling on edge. He wants to be ignored.

Jeremy, though... He actually _rolls his eyes_. Like he doesn’t know how Michael feels about touch! Like he hasn’t been this way since they met in _freakin’ pre-K!_

_I can’t take it personally,_ his brain reasons, _He probably doesn’t even know he did it. It’s just instinct kicking in because he still wants to seem cool in front of Jake._

_Isn’t that just as bad?_ his heart counters, _After everything I’ve done for him, he’s still ready to become someone else and drop me as soon as the opportunity presents itself!_

Michael shakes his head to throw the intrusive thoughts off balance. He’s still pissed off, but he can’t help feeling stupid for freaking out over such a minor affront. He decides to work silently, speaking only when spoken to. Let Jeremy and Jake fill the silence, since they’re apparently _best fucking friends._

… The silent treatment can only last so long-- 10 minutes in Michael’s case. It ends when Jeremy starts stuttering out a half-question to Jake:

“I-- uh. The room downstairs, is that? I mean, do you care if I-- Unless there’s another one--”

Michael raises an eyebrow; Jeremy doesn’t stammer this much unless he’s got himself worked up over something. Michael lets him suffer for a few seconds before stepping in. It’s almost a flashback to grade school, when Michael essentially operated as Jeremy’s “anxiety translator.”

Jake, for his part, squints at Jeremy like he’s speaking another language.

“He has to pee,” Michael intones dully. Jeremy sighs out a swirl of embarrassment and gratefulness.

“Oh, yeah, man, go for it. Bathroom’s downstairs, right off where we came in.”

“Th-thanks.”

Aaaaand then it’s just Jake and Michael.

Michael’s hoping they can just maintain an awkward silence, so of course Jake turns out to be one of those people who have to fill every lull. Michael fights against telling himself that they have that in common. Logically, if he has to talk, the thing for Jake to do in this situation would be to ask a question about the work, even if he doesn’t really have one. That would be the easiest script to follow. Naturally, he doesn’t do that. 

“So, Jeremy says you have two moms, that’s dope.”

“Uh… yeah. Yeah, I guess.”

“I mean, like, ‘cause you’re gay, right? So it’s cool you have them for advice or whatever.”

Michael almost snaps the pencil in his hand. 

How does Jake know? _Why_ does Jake know? Did Jeremy tell _all_ his friends or something? Granted, it’s not exactly a secret and Michael has a couple Pride patches on his hoodie-- it’s just easier to be mad at Jeremy. But it’s not exactly outside the realm of possibility that Jake figured it out on his own. He’s not _that_ stupid. 

Then again, _this_ is apparently his idea of small talk.

“Doesn’t come in that handy, actually,” Michael replies coolly, mostly because he wants something to disagree about. 

“No?” Jake sounds amused, yes, but there’s a touch of sympathy, too. Michael does his best to ignore it.

“Not a lot of advice about guys coming from two women who have only ever dated women.”

Jake laughs, and of course that’s when Jeremy returns. He smiles like he’s pleased they’re getting along.

“You find it?”

“Y-yeah, man.” Jeremy resumes his cross-legged position next to Michael. “I’ve never seen one of those bathtubs with the door on the side in real life before.”

Jake laughs like he’s told a joke. Michael pointedly doesn’t say anything, successfully executing a cold shoulder. It makes him feel a little smug when Jeremy glances at him nervously.

The three of them get back to work, and even though Michael’s being silent by choice, he feels like a third wheel. Jake is _so_ good at responding exactly how Jeremy wants him to. He laughs when Jeremy says something that’s supposed to be funny, he echoes Jeremy’s groans when there’s a verb no one can remember how to conjugate. Michael’s never been any good at knowing how to relate when it’s small stuff like this. Obviously you’re supposed to be sympathetic when someone’s relative dies and you’re supposed to be happy when they get married or have a kid. The stuff in between is confusing. It’s way safer to just put on your headphones and tune out the world.

Still, it gets to him; the way Jake can be such a good friend to Jeremy without becoming a doormat like Michael. Jake is such a clear example of everything Michael isn’t, so the way Jeremy hangs on his every word means he’s gotta feel the opposite towards Michael, right?

There’s a tightness in his throat, but he can’t just burst into tears in the middle of schooling some white boys on their Spanish. He’ll look like a crazy person! It doesn’t matter that he _is_ one.

He never would have cared about that, before.

He swallows the feeling, but the fading effects of his respiratory infection decide to join in on his pity party. There’s an annoying tickle in his throat and suddenly he’s hacking up his lungs again.

It’s worse this time, because of course it is.

Michael coughs into the sleeve of his hoodie pathetically hard, chest burning with renewed pain. Jeremy says, “Jesus, dude,” and rubs comfortingly at his back. He tries to breathe through the filter of his sleeve-- he always did that as a kid, even though it never helped. It just feels safer to hide behind something. Jake hesitantly takes Michael’s water bottle and presses it into his hands, looking nervous in a different way than before. It’s a well-meaning gesture, but Michael can’t really drink anything right now.

“M-Michael, that sounds pretty bad-- sh-should we, maybe-- Do you, um--”

Michael hears his own wheezing and cringes at the sound. He sounds like the Cruiser, every time it would deign to start up in the last few months before it’s long-overdue death. 

His skin feels clammy and he can’t stop trembling. He’s freezing and everything’s starting to seem farther and farther away. He doesn’t want to scare the others, but this is... bad. In between wheezes, he wastes some air to reiterate breathlessly, “Not… contagious… Really.”

Neither Jeremy nor Jake respond to that, which is probably for the best since it’s probably not true. Jeremy leaves his spot beside Michael to crouch in front of him, pulling his sleeve away from his face like he’ll just miraculously stop asphyxiating once it’s out of the way. Michael tries to avoid eye contact as his lungs heave, desperate to suck in even the smallest particle of oxygen even though Michael’d pretty much rather die at this point. There’s that feeling again, like he’s in trouble when he hasn’t done anything wrong.

He hasn’t had an asthma attack this bad in years. He’d thought he’d just… grown out of it. People say that happens all the time, right? 

It’s just another way the universe is keeping him from moving on in life. One step forward, two steps back. Just like with Jeremy.

“Michael,” Jeremy says softly. He takes Michael’s hand and is trying to show Michael, like he hasn’t seen his own fucking hand before. (Although no one knows their own hands like Jeremy does, Michael guesses. _Guy’s a masturbator extraordinaire)._

_Is this really the time to think about that?!_

Michael slumps forward, clawing at Jeremy’s shoulders just to stay upright. The tiny bit of air he can get in makes a god-awful whistling noise every time he tries to exhale. His head hurts and there are sparks flying through more of his vision than not. 

For some reason, he can hear his own ragged attempt at breathing loud and clear, but when Jeremy and Jake speak they sound like they’re underwater. Jake keeps trying to shove the water bottle at him, at a loss of any other way to help. Jeremy shoulders him out of the way and gets in Michael’s face. He’s anxiously demanding something. 

It’s at this point that Michael finally notices what Jeremy’s been trying to show him; the tips of Michael’s fingers are beginning to tint blue. 

This image temporarily pushes through the haze of oxygen-deprived stupidity and Michael pieces together what Jeremy must be asking. “Um,” Michael rasps, vision mostly back besides the sparks. “C-car…. In the… the...” 

Jeremy pulls back and looks at him seriously. He says-- something, but not loud enough for Michael to understand through his muffled ears. 

There’s a small, warm touch to his clammy forehead. It only lasts a second and it leaves the spots just a tiny bit wet. 

Michael finds himself being manhandled all of a sudden and he stops thinking about the feeling. Jeremy’s gone and new, larger hands clutch his upper arms. Jake pushes him back slowly, frantically saying yet another thing Michael can’t make out, and plucks the glasses off his face. He’s made to lean against the side of the bed behind him (his senses are largely gone, he just knows it’s the bed because he remembers sitting next to Jeremy on the floor). Michael has no control over his body now, though, and instinctively it wants to curl in on itself. Like if he can crumple his lungs up, maybe he can get some air in. 

The meager air he’s getting isn’t even coming in wheezes anymore. It’s just a tiny whisp, like he’s breathing through the eye of a needle. A part of him wants to claw at his throat, but that won’t help and the lack of oxygen means he doesn’t have the strength to lift his arms, anyway. He searches his mind for something else to focus on as a last ditch effort to stay conscious. 

Michael doesn’t want to die, most of the time. He remembers the _other_ time he’d been at Jake’s house (albeit the old one), the _other_ time he’d struggled to breathe in it (for different reasons). Jeremy had abandoned him then, too. 

Sure, this time he’s trying to help, probably tearing the car apart looking for Michael’s inhaler, but the end result is the same. Michael is alone. He’s going to die without ever seeing Jeremy again. 

Without ever getting a chance to _tell_ him, even though he’ll be rejected. 

He realizes, now, that he wishes Jeremy could know how he feels. That way, at least he’d always know he’s loved, even if he doesn’t reciprocate. He’d never have to feel the way he did when his mom walked out, or when Christine didn’t schedule another date. 

It’s just another of Michael’s many failures that he hasn’t even done that for Jeremy, who he loves more than anything. And now he’ll never get the chance, because he’s realized something else: 

He’s borrowing his mom’s car, which he’s hardly ever allowed to drive-- why would he keep an emergency inhaler in there? If he still had the Cruiser, it’d be there, haphazardly stuffed in the glovebox alongside a couple sharpies and the graphing calculator he’s hiding from his moms (he broke it, and those things are _expensive_. It’s funny how little he cares about that now that he’s, y’know, _dying_ ). But that was his car and it’s dead, just like Michael’s going to be. Maybe he’ll see it at the pearly gates. 

The worst part is that he remembers now-- his inhaler is in this very room, in his backpack where his mom stuck it when he’d tried to leave home without it. His backpack’s just slouched over on the floor in Jake’s doorway. 

And Michael can’t get to it. 

He’s too weak to move, and of course it’s taken so long for him to realize that now he doesn’t have the breath to tell Jake. He’s going to die of an asthma attack just out of reach of his inhaler. 

Fucking ridiculous. _Darwin Awards_ nominee for sure. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> old people, amiright?


	5. Scratches, p2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> boy, this is a weird one.

Jake is freaking the hell out when Jeremy bursts back into his bedroom. When Jeremy spots Michael’s ashen face and unfocused eyes, he understands why. He’d torn Michael’s mom’s car apart looking for his friend’s inhaler, but it _just. Isn’t. **There.**_ Jeremy had left all the doors wide open when he’d decided he had to go back in. 

_It’s taking too long,_ his thoughts threaten.

He speeds into the house and up the stairs faster than he’s ever moved, at once terrified and oddly detached. His game plan is to ask Michael where else his inhaler could be, or call an ambulance if he still can’t find it.

That goes out the window the second he sees Michael. The other boy is barely conscious, scarcely breathing at all anymore, and Jeremy feels his legs give out at the sight.

“What do we do?!” Jake cries out, “What the _fuck_ do we do?!”

“I- I don’t-- I can’t--” Jeremy sputters, pale fingers fumbling clumsily across his phone’s screen. There’s no way he has it in him to calmly explain the situation, so he just dials 911 and throws his phone into Jake’s hands.

Jeremy shoves Jake aside and takes his place in front of his friend. An involuntary gasp escapes his throat as Michael slumps forward, unable to hold himself upright anymore. Somewhere behind him, Jake is making the floor creak as he frantically paces back and forth.

“I-- no, he has, like, asthma or something?! My-- my other friend said he has an inhaler but he came back without it and, like, he looks really bad! He was making this _noise,_ and now he’s like-- No, yeah-- You gotta hurry, please, he’s gonna fucking _die_ \--”

It was a good decision to have Jake do the talking, because Jeremy is too freaked to make a sound. He can’t bring himself to look at Michael’s face as he struggles for breath (and by the looks of it, Michael probably can’t see him either). His brain’s stuck on replay, and all he can do is relive. He thinks of Michael picking him up from his house, he thinks of Michael putting on his headphones, he thinks of the spur-of-the-moment kiss he’d planted on Michael’s forehead.

He thinks of Michael, Michael, _Michael._ His player one, his favorite person, the “RIENDS” to his “BOYF.” There aren’t a lot of people out there that can so seamlessly reclaim what was meant to be insulting when it was written and turn it into--

Actually, wait--

The _backpack!_

It’s the only other place Michael could have put the emergency inhaler, assuming he didn’t leave it at home. If he did _that,_ then…

Jeremy pushes Michael back to rest against Jake’s bed so he doesn’t fall over when he moves. Silently praying he’s right, he tears his friend’s backpack open and starts dumping everything out. A second later, the inhaler is in his hand and ready to go.

He just hopes to whatever gods there may be that the awful whistling sound Michael’s making doesn’t mean he’s beyond help. It’s been a long time since he’s had an attack (longer still since he’s had one this bad), but Jeremy remembers. If he can’t breathe well enough to get the medicine in, it won’t be able to get where it needs to go to save him.

Jake is mumbling “oh my god, oh my god,” like he’s trying to break a record and Jeremy’s not even sure if he’s still on the phone or not. He returns to Michael and forces himself to look into his friend’s unfocused eyes.

It’s terrifying.

Jeremy yanks Michael closer by his hoodie and jams the inhaler into his mouth, trying to ignore the way it _clacks_ when it hits his teeth. There’s something he wants to say, here, but there’s no time to look for the words. Instead, he finds himself weakly breathing out, “Oh, Michael...”

He times Michael’s faint wheezes and pushes the inhaler’s plunger down as he takes a strangled breath.

\- - - - - - - - 

It’s not instantaneous, but it’s pretty damn quick. In just moments, Michael is back to coughing and gasping in painful gulps of air. Jeremy keeps a hold of him, but again can’t bring himself to look his friend in the eye. Michael leans in to Jeremy, woozy, and feebly takes his glasses off. He rubs his eyes with one hand while the other carelessly smacks the glasses into things, searching aimlessly with his tingly arm for a pace to set them.

Jake, who has abandoned his role of pacing until there’s a hold in the floor and has instead been standing in the doorway and shaking like a Chihuahua, leaps at the chance to actually do something. He takes the glasses from Michael’s hand and sets them on top of his bed, then offers the water bottle again. Michael takes it, more to get Jake out of his face than anything else. 

“That was crazy,” Jake exhales when he can’t stand the (relative) silence anymore. “You-- you good now, bro?”

Michael nods-- regretting it immediately when his vision wavers again. He closes his eyes and covers them with an arm, so Jeremy has to remove his grip and wrap his arm around Michael’s shoulder instead.

“C- Call them back,” he croaks, coughing again. “Tell them not to… Tell them we don’t… need an ambulance.” He’s a bit breathless by the end, but he’s nonetheless happy to be able to speak semi-normally again.

“Dude. I think you should get checked out,” Jeremy tries nervously. “I-- I mean, God, that was _bad_.”

“Mm-mm,” Michael _slurrs _weakly. “Ambulances’re expensive.”__

__“You have to pay for an ambulance?” Jake asks obliviously._ _

__“Yeah, it’s bullshit. How did you not know that?” Jeremy replies, then turns back to Michael. “I don’t know, man...”_ _

__“Please,” he begs, “Mom can check me out later or something.”_ _

__“I guess...” Jeremy relents, however unconvinced he may be._ _

__Jake picks up the phone-- the dispatcher is actually still on the line-- and tells them that they don’t need the ambulance anymore. It sounds like it takes some convincing, but eventually Jake sighs and hangs up. He hands the phone back to Jeremy with still-shaking hands._ _

__“So, what do we do now?” It’s strange to see a guy like Jake so lost and anxious._ _

__“Well, if he won’t go to the hospital...”_ _

__“I don’t _need_ to, seriously,” Michael insists. Jeremy gives him a look that strongly suggests he disagrees._ _

__“Wait, wait, wait--” Jake blusters, “so, what, we’re not doing anything?! We’re just moving on with life like Michael didn’t just almost- _die_ in my bedroom?! What the _fuck_?!”_ _

__“Pretty much,” Michael mumbles, exhausted. “That’s--”_ _

__From the window, a dark blur and a flurry of whooshing noises makes the three boys leap out of their skins. A robin, majestic creature it is, face-plants on Jake’s mattress. It leaves a faint cloud of dust._ _

___A new challenger enters the fray!__ _

__The bird takes one look at the three of them and starts manically flitting around the room._ _

__“Aaahh, that the hell?!” Jeremy exclaims helplessly. He grabs Michael and pulls their bodies together._ _

__“Get it, _getitgetitgetit_!” Jake yelps._ _

__“ _You_ get it! What don’t you have a bug screen in your window?!”_ _

__“How _else_ is Rich supposed to get in?!” Jake cries, “Oh man, it’s gonna crap on my stuff!”_ _

__“Both of you, shut up!” Michael exclaims hoarsely, hardly above speaking volume. “Stop freaking out, you’re making _it_ freak out!”_ _

__Michael grabs an arm on each of them and holds them down beside him. The bird stops on the edge of the door frame, but panics again when Jake’s poster falls down._ _

__“How do we get it to leave?! Do we feed it a cracker or something?!”_ _

__“Do you want it to be your _pet_?” Michael asks, “Give it one of your grandpa’s Circus Peanuts!”_ _

__The robin stops a few times, but never for more than a second. There’s not much of anything to perch on in Jake’s meagerly-decorated room. Eventually, it lands on a bedpost. The boys slowly inch away from the bed and turn to face it, trying not to startle it._ _

__“Rich told me birds all have lice, is it gonna get lice on my bed?!” Jake whisper-shouts worriedly. Before either of his guests can respond, something seems to catch the bird’s beady little eye._ _

__It flutters curiously onto the bedspread and pecks at Michael’s glasses._ _

__Then, it grabs one side with its feet and flies clumsily out the window, like it’s been able to do that _the whole time.__ _

__The boys gape at the robin as it bounces up and down through the air (Michael’s glasses being far to heavy for a small bird to carry). It disappears into the tree a few yards from Jake’s window, glasses and all._ _

__For a moment, no one speaks._ _

__Then:_ _

__“Are you _fuCKIN **G KIDDING ME?!?!”**_ Michael wheeze-screams to the heavens._ _

__Jeremy is stunned into silence. Michael’s always losing his glasses, but the statistical improbability of this is just… What the fuck?_ _

__“I’ve never seen a bird pick up something that big,” Jake marvels. “I thought only crows were supposed to like shiny stuff?”_ _

__“It doesn’t matter what that thing likes,” Michael sighs mournfully, which tickles his still-irritated throat and makes him cough. “It’s an agent of chaos, sent by a cruel god to make sure I’m perpetually blind and also grounded.”_ _

__“That is so freaking _metal_ , bro. Did you, like, make a deal with the devil or something?” Jake wonders. Of course he’d think something like this is cool._ _

__Michael groans in exasperation and flops back onto the floor, pressing his palms into his eyes. What the actual fuck is his life?_ _

__Jeremy jolts and hovers over him for a minute. “Jesus, don’t do that,” he sighs, “I thought you fainted or something!”_ _

__“I wish,” Michael replies solemnly, “then at least I would be free from this _blurry world of suffering_ for a minute.”_ _

__“And you think _I’m_ the dramatic one.”_ _

__Michael resists the urge to scream, but only because the memory of almost suffocating is still painfully fresh in his mind. Best not to agitate his dumb lungs any more. “This would literally never happen to anyone else, ever. This is a hell designed for me, specifically.”_ _

__Jeremy can’t disagree._ _

__“Dude, let’s just go get them back?” Jake prompts. “It probably dropped them, right? Let’s go look. Worst case scenario is we gotta climb a tree I’ve already been making my bitch since I was 9.”_ _

__\- - - - - - - - - –_ _

__With the pity party indefinitely postponed, the boys make their way outside. The three of them stand, hands crossed or on hips, and try to come up with a game plan._ _

__“Okay, one you tall freaks give me a boost,” Michael starts._ _

__“I’ll get ‘em for you, bro; it’s sorta my fault they’re up there anyway.”_ _

__Michael feels oddly embarrassed for the billionth time today-- embarrassment is starting to be his default state of being, at least when he’s not angsting over Jeremy. “No, I, uh, I got this. With mediocre glasses comes mediocre responsibility, that’s what my parents always say.” He ends with a fake laugh and hopes Jake doesn’t offer again. He’s _really_ not feeling up to climbing trees after the attack (not to mention he’s never been exactly the “outdoorsy” type), but he definitely doesn’t want to impose on Jake. Not after all he’s already done to ruin the day._ _

__After all, they barely know each other. He’s only Jeremy’s friend, really, so, yeah, it’s super cool of him to invite the both of them over-- even if it _is_ just because Michael speaks Spanish. When he remembers the huge, pencil-case stealing jock of just a short time ago, he seems like a totally different person than the Jake who tried to call him an ambulance and introduced him to his scary grandparents._ _

__Speaking of Jake’s possibly undead grandparents, their car pulls up and parks halfway into the grass. It’s remarkable that it’s in one piece, and even crazier that the couple inside are uninjured as well. But then again, these are _clearly_ not mere mortal beings._ _

__“Oh, shit,” Jake starts, body stiffening. “If Granny sees us climbing a tree, I’m never gonna hear the end of it. _’That’s for children, Jacob, you’re a gentleman now,_ ’” he adds in a spot-on impression of his grandmother._ _

__“I’ll get Michael’s glasses, you go distract them,” Jeremy says in a low voice._ _

__“You’re a genius, bro,” Jake exclaims. He runs off toward the car and Michael can just barely hear him offering to help carry the groceries._ _

__“Okay,” Michael tries again, “gimme a boost.”_ _

__Jeremy shakes his head and starts testing the branches he can reach. “Nah, I just said, I’ll get them.”_ _

__Michael raises an eyebrow. Sure, he’s an out-of-shape, scrawny dweeb, but Jeremy Heere has literally never climbed a tree in his life. His body is a mess of lanky, awkward limbs and he’s clumsy-- it’s never been in the cards for him to do things like this. Not even when they were kids._ _

__“It’s really not a big deal, they’re _my_ glasses, y’know?”_ _

__Jeremy sighs heavily and Michael gets the feeling there’s some kind of subtext here that he’s missing. Why does Jeremy not want him climbing the tree? “Yeah, it’s _not_ a big deal. So chill out and let me get them for you.”_ _

__Michael feels antsy. As much as he’d rather not climb the tree, he _definitely_ doesn’t want Jeremy to. It’s emasculating and embarrassing for one. He’s already shown what a fragile little twerp he is with the asthma attack. He doesn’t want to be treated like an invalid._ _

__But mostly, it’s because of the uncomfortable flutter in his stomach-- not of butterflies, but ugly little moths. If he lets Jeremy do this for him, he’s being codependent again. It’s bad for him as a person (especially as a soon-to-be-adult), and it’s gotta irritate Jeremy._ _

__If he could just become more independent, it’d probably help with his turbulent head-space. If he wasn’t so needy, maybe it wouldn’t have hurt so bad when Jeremy ditched him. Maybe if he could handle life by himself, he would be less miserable all the time. Maybe he wouldn’t seem so pathetic to Jeremy, or his moms, or anyone else for that matter._ _

__Maybe if he weren’t such a burden, Jeremy would…_ _

__Maybe Jeremy _could_ …_ _

__Michael shakes the “maybes” out of his skull. Present, he needs to be present. “I can do it, seriously, I’m not--”_ _

__“And I _said_ I was doing it,” Jeremy half hisses, half growls. “End of story.”_ _

__Michael falters, taking a step back. He has no idea why Jeremy’s being so serious all of a sudden. He sounds angry, in a way that sounds so wrong paired with his voice. There’s something painful in his tone, like he’s threatening Michael even though he’s not even facing him. It’s so unlike Jeremy, and yet somehow it’s a harshly pure version of him. It’s almost primal, in a way._ _

__The worst part if that Michael’s heard this tone before, and for a second he’s back there again._ _

_Get outta my way, **loser**_.” 

__Michael’s breath hitches in his throat and somehow it feels so much worse than an asthma attack._ _

He plops down onto the ground, more like a puppet with its strings cut than a human being. His hands grab at the tile-- the _grass_ , it’s grass, he’s outside. He watches Jeremy climb the tree in silence. He’d never wanted to see this view again; Jeremy’s back, moving _up_ instead of _out_ this time, sure, but it’s still _away_ all the same. 

__The way his form is blurred in Michael’s vision makes him seem like he’s so far gone he’s in another dimension._ _

__Jeremy says something unintelligible, his voice back to its usual pleasant bounce. It’s like nothing happened and maybe it didn’t. Michael feels like he’s been broken in half, but it means nothing to Jeremy._ _

_Just like me,_ his cruel subconscious interjects. 

Before he knows it, Jeremy is jumping back down with a twig in his hair. “Seriously,” he’s continuing his one-sided conversation, “I know it’s supposed to be this beautiful nature thing, but it’s gross. I didn’t know they _shit_ all over their nests like that, dude. You would not _believe_ it.” 

He turns to Michael (momentary confusion across his face until he looks _down_ ) and bites his lip. There’s an atmosphere of uneasiness between them and it occurs to Michael that Jeremy’s just been talking to fell the awkward voice, like Michael usually does. 

__But the damage is done._ _

__“What are you, um-- I mean, uh, h-here’s your glasses. They’re looking… pretty rough, man.”_ _

__Jeremy hands the glasses to Michael. Wordlessly, Michael takes them. His vision is terrible without them and the unspilled tears in his eyes aren’t helping either, but he can feel the deeply scratched glass with his finger tips._ _

__Taking a shaky breath, Michael stands and brushes the dirt off his pants. Jeremy looks at him like there’s something he wants to say, but Michael doesn’t trust himself to hold a conversation right now. “I’m gonna--” he clears his throat, nervously bending the already fucked up spectacles in his hands, “I’m gonna head out. Text me it you need a ride home later, but Jake’ll probably--”_ _

__“W-why? Are you okay?”_ _

_Far from it_ , Michael’s heart cries out. 

__“Yeah I’m good, just, you know...” He trails off._ _

__“Okay… See you tomorrow? Unless you’re still not feeling well, I guess?”_ _

__Michael nods once, sharply, and pulls his headphones over his ears, stuffing the glasses into his hoodie pocket. Jeremy takes the hint and the “conversation” is over._ _

__Michael sneaks back into the house for his backpack, silently thankful that he manages to avoid Jake and his grandparents. He makes it out unseen and Jeremy’s still just… standing there._ _

__He looks away when Michael glances his way, but Michael can feel the heat of his stare on his back again as he slinks off to his mom’s car. Distantly, he hears Jake talking. Jeremy either replies quietly or not at all, but it’s deafening all the same._ _

__Michael presses his headphones harder against his skull._ _

__\- - - - - - - - - - - - - -_ _

__His parents are out when he gets home-- small mercies. His cat, Socrates (“Socks”, usually, so named because he and Jeremy picked her out on the shelter’s website when they were high and thought she looked really wise), rubs against his legs. It’s the only sensation that doesn’t make him cringe at the moment.  
His heavy legs, weighed down by his bottomed-out heart, carry him to his bedroom. He eases himself slowly onto the bed, lying atop the covers. Socks noses the door open, hops up beside him, and starts kneading his chest. It hurts even through the hoodie (claws aside, Socks is _not_ a small cat). He doesn’t stop her. _ _

__His heart’s pounding too hard to sleep, so instead Michael puts his scratched-to-hell glasses on and faces the wall._ _

__He doesn’t want to see right now, anyway._ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> obligatory apology for taking forever between chapters? but lets be real, that's never gonna change, i suck lol
> 
> so, next time we'll be going back to the intro scene and moving forward from there. we've got 1-3 chapters left, maaaaayyyybe including an epilogue, who knows??
> 
> thanks again everyone!!!


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